


Make It Home Again

by MomentumDeferred, tj_teejay



Series: The *other* Sunshineverse(s) [5]
Category: Daredevil (TV)
Genre: Aliens, Alternate Universe - Alien Invasion, Alternate Universe - Biological Warfare, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Apocalypse, Canon-Typical Violence, Co-Dependency, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Neurological Disorders, Post-Apocalypse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sickfic, Speech Disorders, Sunshineverse, Survival, Terminal Illnesses, Whump, feral!Matt, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-19
Packaged: 2018-05-05 12:10:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 22,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5374751
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentumDeferred/pseuds/MomentumDeferred, https://archiveofourown.org/users/tj_teejay/pseuds/tj_teejay
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nothing says half-feral love quite like getting your ass kicked while you’re trying to do a good thing for one of your post-apocalyptic best buds who is feeling a little out of sorts. Or: How Casa de Feral Asshole turns into the infirmary of fluff with its very own trapdoor straight into the angst pit. (Plays in the same universe as MomentumDeferred's story <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/4217547">“Sunshine”</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Some Courage At The Side Of Your Bed

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Sunshine](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4217547) by [MomentumDeferred](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MomentumDeferred/pseuds/MomentumDeferred). 



> We will be posting the four chapters of "Make It Home Again" over the next two weeks to tide you over the short "Sunshine" hiatus while Ash keeps working on the next chapters.
> 
> Titled after [“Thief”](http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x15goe_our-lady-peace-thief_music) by Our Lady Peace. And TeeJay says: Massive thanks to Ash for ALL THE THINGS. Forehead hugs for you, young lady. So many of them.
> 
> If you’re interested in more stories that play in the Sunshineverse, check out [Ash's](http://sunshineverse.tumblr.com/) or [TeeJay's](http://half-feral.tumblr.com/) Tumblrs.

The mornings when Karen wasn’t the first to get up were few and far between, and there was just something not right for Foggy to wake up and find a heap of Karen-shaped blankets curled up on the couch in the soft morning light.

Matt stirred behind him, slowly dragging himself out of sleep. “Mnnrgh,” he mumbled into Foggy’s back.

“Morning to you, too,” Foggy replied, even though he was fairly sure Matt’s word soup hadn’t actually been a greeting.

And then Matt pushed himself up and angled his face in Karen’s direction. Yeah, he was bewildered too that she wasn’t handing them both a mug of terrible coffee, or tea, or whatever else their sparse inventory would yield that week.

“Foggy,” he mumbled, sleep still thick in his voice. “Karen is warm.”

Foggy turned towards him, a frown on his face. “Warm? What do you mean?”

“Body. Warm. Infek… sh-nn?”

“She has an infection?”

Matt tilted his head. “Yes. Don’t know. Warm.”

Foggy peeled himself out of his blanket and ambled over to the couch. “Karen?”

She let out a low moan.

Foggy tried again. “Hey, are you sick?”

He saw her stir, even though her face was still turned towards the seat cushions. “Maybe.” Her voice was croaky. Rough. Not her usual self.

“What is it? A cold?”

“Yeah. Maybe. I don’t know.”

“Are you running a fever?”

A sigh escaped her lips. “I don’t know, Foggy. Go away.”

He couldn’t hold back an amused little chuckle. “You know me better than that.” His knees protested as he crouched down next to her. He softly tugged at her shoulder. “Come on, let me feel your forehead.”

Her response was slow, but she gingerly rolled onto her back. The skin of her forehead was definitely warmer than it should be against the back of his hand. “Yeah, I’d say that feels like a fever.”

“Great,” she groaned. “Just what I need.”

“Symptoms?”

She closed her eyes. Her sigh was a little too dramatic. “I hate you. Go away.”

“Not gonna happen. Symptoms, Karen.”

“Sore throat. Headache. Chills.”

“Nausea?”

“No.”

“Anything else?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

“Probably. Sounds like a cold to me. I’ll kill you if you spread your germs around the place and infect us.”

That made her mouth spread into a grin. Small victory. “I told you to go away. You wouldn’t listen.”

“The curse of being the medic around here.”

Matt was perched on the edge of the futon, looking too apprehensive for his own good. “Karen is sick?”

Foggy went into the kitchen. Matt followed. “She just has a cold.”

“Not bad? Infection?”

“She’ll be fine in a few days. Don’t worry, buddy. Though I’m sure she’s gonna be grumpy as hell.”

Her voice filtered through to them, laced with mock irritation. “You know I can hear you, right?”

Foggy called back through the open door. “We do. We don’t care. Go back to sleep.”

Her only response was incoherent grumbling.

Matt looked as if the conversation hadn’t exactly reassured him. “Foggy, can you help? Can I help?”

Foggy had to smile at that. “Colds are annoying as fuck, and sadly best combatted with Tylenol, herbal tea and lots of sleep. It’ll take a few days. Nothing much we can do, but I’m sure she appreciates the sentiment.”

Matt’s only reply was an unhappy _hmpf_. The next few days weren’t gonna be fun. Especially if it kept raining. Like he knew it would. Just their fucking luck.

+-+-+-+-+

Karen only got worse over the course of the day. Foggy had her take her temperature a few times. It never went over 102, which wasn’t even near worrying. It was a simple cold, but he could tell she was suffering enough for it.

They let her sleep as much as they could, offered her the futon—which she actually took. Matt and Foggy spent time in the garage, and later relocated into the storage room where Foggy sat at the desk and Matt took up residence on an upside-down plastic milk crate.

Foggy looked up at him from his book. He had been uncannily still for the last few minutes, save for his fingers gently fondling the spine of his Braille book. It made a soft scraping noise as his fingernails scratched against it.

“What is it, Matty?”

“Hm?” He lifted his head in Foggy’s direction.

“Penny for your thoughts.”

“What is penny?”

“That’s something you say when you want to know what someone’s thinking about. What are you thinking about?”

“Karen _is_ not okay.”

That had Foggy’s attention. “Is she getting worse?”

“Mm. No. Karen _feel not_ good.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“No. I know. _She_ is warm. Moves. Make _noi_ ses.”

Matt’s radar senses were still amazing. Foggy wanted to melt a little into Karen’s folding chair. Which was actually fucking uncomfortable. He didn’t know how she spent hours in it, dicking around with her guns. “She’ll be fine.”

“Sleeps a lot.”

“Yeah, so do you.”

“I’m not infec _tion_.”

“You make it sound so dramatic. It’s a cold. It’s not serious. She’ll get over it.”

“Foggy,” he sounded exasperated. “Karen feel not good. Why you… mm… why you _not_ help?”

“Matt, I told you, there isn’t much I can do. I’ve brought her tea, I’ve asked if she wants company. She said no. I’m not sure what else you want me to do.”

“She lie.”

“What do you mean? She lied about being sick?”

“No.” More exasperation. “She not… mm… doesn’t wants _to_ be alone.”

Oh geez. Way to make Foggy feel like a complete ass in the matter of two seconds. He narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure?” Why was he even asking? Of course Matt would be sure.

“Yes, Foggy.”

“Is she awake?”

Matt listened for a moment. “Yes.”

Foggy dog-eared his book and closed it, trying to ignore the sudden knot in his stomach. “So you’re saying we should go and crowd her space?”

“Foggy, yes.” Matt gave him a wistful little smile. Foggy remembered those from back in the day, when Matt would sit opposite him at the meeting room table, and they’d be talking about cured meats and defense arguments and softball.

A muscle below his eye started twitching, and he got up from the chair with a decisive groan. Those times had come and gone. Treasured memories locked away in a cabinet drawer. He didn’t want to dwell on them. He sighed. “Okay, let’s go make some tea, how about that?”

Matt was already on the way, and Foggy followed into the kitchen to get the Bunsen burner going. The other week Matt had found a wooden box with an assortment of tea bags in a half collapsed hotel a few blocks away. He picked out the last chamomile one and put in a little of the honey they still had.

Matt observed him from where he now sat cross-legged on the kitchen counter. His eyes roamed around slowly, always gentle, and inquisitive in their own right. His fingers played with the seam of his trouser leg.

When Foggy was ready to carry the mug to the sickbed, Matt got up and asked, “Foggy, _can_ I take?”

Foggy smiled. Yep, a hundred percent Matt ‘All About My Posse’ Murdock. He held the mug out to him. “Sure.”

Sitting down on the couch, Foggy tucked up his legs to his chest and watched Matt as he sat down gingerly on the edge of the futon. Karen was lying on her back with her arm dragged across her eyes.

“Karen?” he asked, her name now coming almost fluently from his lips, no longer getting caught on that odd two-syllable stutter.

She just grunted.

“Have tea for you.”

Her arm came away, her eyes squinting against the sudden influx of light. She shivered and pulled all her limbs under the blanket. “Thanks. Can you put it on the table?”

“You not want to drink?”

“Oh, great. Now I have two doctors nagging me to watch my fluid intake.”

Predictably, the sarcastic edge in her voice went completely over Matt’s head. “Why you say I’m a doctor? I’m not doc _tor_.”

She sounded tired. “It was a joke, Matt. Or… not a joke. Sarcasm.”

“Hm,” he hummed. Foggy had explained the concept to him more than once. “You _not_ mean what you say, Karen?”

“No, I… uh… I just don’t want tea right now, okay?”

“It hurts?”

“The tea? No. My head? Yeah. Like a bitch. So does the throat. Just let me die quietly here on the futon for the rest of the day, okay?”

“No, not okay. You not must _be_ alone. Will die with you.”

She chuckled out loud. It must have caused discomfort in her throat, because a grimace briefly washed over her face. She hid it quickly, tried to put up a brave front. “Seriously, I’m okay, Matt. You go do something fun.”

He just said, “No,” and slid a little closer to where her hip was, pulling up his legs to cross them underneath him. Foggy was more than a little proud.

She let out another sigh and peeled her arms back out from under her blanket. “I’m gross and sick and miserable. You don’t want to be around me right now.”

“I want to, Karen. Make you feel _better_.”

_Stop it, Matty,_ Foggy thought. At this rate, he was gonna have to cry in a matter of minutes.

Matt played with a crease in Karen’s blanket. “What you need?”

She shook her head just a little. “A new body?”

“Hm. Don’t have _this_. Can look tomorrow _out_ side.”

Was he making jokes now? He totally was. Foggy was amazed all over again. Karen smiled. “You do that. Find me a good one, yeah? One I can return if it doesn’t work right.”

“You want man or woman?”

Foggy was laughing out loud.

“Oh my God,” Karen groaned in amusement. “Woman. Definitely woman. Nice hair, please.”

“What else you _want_ me find?”

“A bottle of NyQuil would be awesome.”

Incomprehension spread over Matt’s face, but Karen could already see it, so she added, “It’s a cold medication.”

“Foggy, you not have?”

“No, sorry. NyQuil isn’t exactly considered a life-saving essential.”

She huffed. “Try being the one with the cold, then say that again.”

“You’re being a drama queen. That’s usually Matt’s job.”

Matt was almost on the way to a pout. “Not—”

Foggy interrupted. “Shush. We’re not having drama queen contests. You want some Tylenol, Karen?”

She grumbled something, then added more coherently, “Yes, please.”

At least it was something he could help out with. He put the bottle on the table, a glass of water next to it. “You shouldn’t take more than three in six hours. How many have you already had?”

“Two since this morning.”

He handed her one pill and the water. Matt followed it with a tilt of his head, a slight edge of worry still etched into his features. The dork.

Foggy couldn’t help but watch them both carefully. When she had swallowed the tablets, she lay back down, curling her knees up. “You know what else I could use? Distraction. A TV. The internet. A Netflix subscription. Cute cat videos or Bejeweled or the unabridged James Herriot audio collection on Audible.”

“Yeah, those all sound awesome,” Foggy agreed.

“I can find?” Matt piped in.

Foggy explained, “No, Matt, those things don’t exist anymore. Not after the attack. They need power, and sophisticated technology, and just… things we’ll never have again.”

God, this was too depressing. Not the right time to get sentimental. So he tried to counteract with a slightly fake-cheerful, “But at least we have stories. That’s the next best thing. Or we can read something to you.”

“Medical texts? No thanks.”

“Well, I have that battered copy of _The Hitchhiker’s Guide_. Or _Dune_ , or your almanacs.”

“Yeah, I’m not sure my head can string single letters together to form words right now.”

Matt told her, “I read for you, Karen.”

“From your Braille books?”

“Yes. You want?”

Foggy raised his eyebrows, waiting for her answer. Matt reading out loud would be slow. Very fucking slow. And laborious. Requiring a lot of patience he wasn’t sure she had right now.

But she nodded, and said, “Yeah, if you like.”

Foggy breathed a silent sigh of relief. And of course Matt had that thousand-watt smile on his face—the one that Foggy would never get tired of. He was already on his feet, dragging all his six books over to the coffee table.

“Karen, which you want?”

“I don’t know, Matt. Which one do you like?”

He picked one out of the pile. “This. _Adventures of Sherlock Holl-Mas_.”

She chuckled. “You pronounce it ‘homes’. _Sherlock Holmes_.”

“ _Homes_ ,” Matt repeated. “Okay. You want?”

“Yes, absolutely.”

Foggy had read all the stories as a teenager. He’d also looked at Matt’s edition. It was one of those that had a collection of short stories in it, that much he could tell. Matt was leafing through it, looking for a specific page. Foggy hoped he wouldn’t be starting in the middle of a story, but then again, Matt was a lot smarter than that.

He watched Matt trace the fingers of his right hand over the letters, scrunching his face up in intense concentration. Reading was one thing, but putting it in his head and letting it come back out had to be one of the most difficult things he’d ever be doing in his life.

And he was doing it all for _her_. Foggy hoped she was able to appreciate it, but he had a feeling she was. Otherwise she wouldn’t have said yes.

Matt’s voice was expectedly stuttery when he started very slowly, “The N… No...ble Ba…che…l…or. Mm. Karen. What is bache- _lor_?”

Her smile was more amusement than mockery. Yep, she’d known it would go exactly like this. Maybe she welcomed the distraction. Probably did. And he knew she actually quite liked explaining things to Matt.

She was lying on her side, her head resting in the crook of her arm, looking at Matt. “Do you know what marriage is?”

“Mm. No.”

“Well, uhm… you know, when two people love each other and want to stay together for the rest of their lives, they would get married. Which is like making it official that they’re bound together. You have to sign papers and there’s a ceremony and a celebration. And a bachelor is someone who _isn’t_ married. Here, it would be a man who hasn’t found a partner yet, or maybe he’s found one but they’re not married yet. In this case, a wife. A woman he loves.”

Matt hummed, which might or might not be comprehension. He moved on, absorbing the sentence first before he read it back out. “The Lord Ess Tee Si-mon ma… marri…age and its cu… _ri_ …ous term… termi…nation, have long ss—mm. See. Mm. Don’t know this word.”

“Can you spell it?”

He did. Slowly. See. Ee. Ey. Ess. Ee. Dee.

“Ceased. It means stopped.”

“Ceased to be a sub…ject of in… inter… _est_ in those eks… ksay… sal. Mm.”

“Another word you don’t know?”

“Yes.”

“Spell it.”

Foggy was amazed by her perseverance, because at this rate, it would take Matt an hour to go through the first five sentences alone.

“Ee. Eks. Ey. El. _Tee_. Ee. Dee.”

“Exalted. Well, that’s a tough one for sure. Can you give me more context? I’m not really sure what it means here. Just keep reading, we’ll figure it out.”

He licked his lips, his finger moving again. “Eks-salted cir…cles in which the un…for…tun… tunate br… _bride_ …groom moves.” He stopped.

“Ah. Exalted circles. It means this person is very important and spends time with other important people. Do you know what a bridegroom is?”

“No.”

“It’s someone who is about to get married. A man who is getting married.”

“The bache _lor_?”

“Yes, the bachelor. Lord Saint Simon.”

“Why s-saint?”

“You said S.T. That’s short for Saint. It’s a way to say this person is important. He has a title to his name.”

Matt went on, measured and unsteady and very, very stuttery. There were a great number of words Karen had to explain. Scandals, eclipsed, piquant, gossips, considerable, memoir. And all those just in the first three sentences alone.

Still, Matt was enjoying the hell out of it, and by the time they’d gone through the first page together, he was half snuggling against her legs. It took a very long time, and Karen never once got annoyed or tired of explaining the words and their meaning to him.

At one point she looked over to meet Foggy’s eyes. He gave her a thumbs up and a big smile. She was doing so much good.

When they finished the next paragraph, Matt leaned back and sighed. “This a _lot_ words I don’t know.”

She sighed with him. “Yeah. And you know why? The author, Arthur Conan Doyle, he lived over a hundred years ago. People used a lot of words then that we would consider old-fashioned now. That we don’t really use anymore. Like piquant. I’m not even sure what that really means.”

“Should not use, piquant?”

“You can, if you want to confuse people,” she laughed.

“No. Don’t want not confuse people. Is… mm. My words _am_ very confusing.”

Foggy couldn’t help but chuckle. Matt’s sense of humor was starting to shine through a lot more often, the more words he managed to add to his vocabulary.

“It’s ‘are confusing’, Matt,” Foggy corrected him while they were at it.

“My words _are_ confusing?”

“If I say yes, it doesn’t mean I agree with the statement.”

“Foggy, _are_ confusing. I know. I _am_ confusing.”

“You’re getting a lot better. And this,” he pointed at the Braille book in his lap, “this is really good. I love it when you practice, you know?”

He let out a breathy huff, hiding a self-conscious little smile behind it. “I like practice, Foggy.”

“I know you do.”

“Karen very good _for_ practice.”

“Thanks, Matt.”

“You also very tired.”

“ _Are_ very tired,” she said, “and, no, I’m not. I’ve slept so much.”

“Head hurts?” Matt asked.

“Yeah. A little. The Tylenol helped.”

“Read more?”

She drew in a breath. “Maybe later? My brain is getting a little fuzzy with all those unfamiliar words.”

“Okay,” he easily acquiesced. “Now Foggy tell story. _Your_ turn.”

Foggy raised his eyebrows. _Your turn?_ He’d never heard Matt use that expression before. “All right,” he agreed. “What do you wanna hear? And don’t say _Star Wars_.”

Matt tilted his head. “Karen choose.”

She gave a little half-shrug. “I don’t care. What’s on the menu?”

“Well, there’s more of _Deep Space Nine_. I haven’t told you about the Vorta yet, right? Weyoun, the sly little motherfucker.”

“Well then,” she said, “Let’s hear it.”

Foggy spent the next two hours telling them about the gamma quadrant and the servants of the Founders. Matt’s head was resting on Karen’s thighs by the time he got to Weyoun’s backstory, and neither of them seemed to mind one tiny bit.

+-+-+-+-+

Foggy couldn’t stop smiling at the picture over on the futon. Matt was lying curled up against a lightly snoring Karen, clutching some of her blanket close to his chest. They’d both fallen asleep like that, right when Foggy got to the part where Weyoun and a fleet of Cardassian space ships wanted to take control of the space station.

He loved seeing them together, loved that the rift between them shrank a little more every day. He wondered if Matt would want to sleep with Karen that night, but that was probably overstating his expectations.

It didn’t happen. By nightfall, Matt came back over to the couch to lie with Foggy, and they changed their sleeping arrangements back to how it had always been—Matt and Foggy on the futon, and Karen on the couch.

She had a roll of toilet paper within reach on the floor, and a heap of crumpled tissue wads next to it. Her nose had started running sometime in the late afternoon. There was lots of sneezing. She wasn’t complaining, but Foggy knew it had to suck balls. He still hoped he and Matt could dodge this particular bullet. Cause Matt with a cold? Total fucking disaster.

The next morning, after they’d all eaten, Matt was putting on his gear, then held out Foggy’s jacket and shoes to him. “Foggy, come, please.”

He rubbed his forehead with his fingers. “Do I have to? You know how much I hate getting rained on. And it looks like it might rain any minute now.”

“Go to Wally, need your help.”

Wally. It was Matt’s word for the Walgreens that happened to be in his territory. There were several, and most of them had been raided already for food or other survival essentials. Matt knew them all, and Foggy had a pretty good idea what this was about.

“Okay, fine,” he acquiesced.

Matt looked pleased and handed Foggy the keys to the truck.

“Wait, we’re driving?”

“This one, a lot miles north.”

“How many?”

Matt pressed his lips into a thoughtful line. “Don’t know. A lot. Twenty. More.”

“Twenty miles?”

“No. Blocks. Miles, don’t know.”

Foggy thought about it. That could easily be more than five miles. Even taking the truck, with the amount of muck and debris out in the streets, it would take them a while.

He turned to Karen. “Anything specific at the Walgreens you want us to look for?”

She sighed. Her nose was bright red. Her consonants sounded funny. “Ugh. I don’t know. Tissues? A time machine? Cryogenic chamber?”

“Very funny. Tissues. Anything else?”

There was a definite whiny quality to her voice. “I don’t know. Whatever you can find. I don’t care.”

Okay. Fair enough. Matt and him, they had this. “Will you be okay on your own here for a while?”

She sounded exasperated now. “Foggy, it’s a cold. It’s not like I’m dying. I can take care of myself.”

He flinched a little. That used to be Matt’s line. “All right. We’ll be back as soon as we can.” He put the dog whistle next to her roll of toilet paper. “Use it if you need us.”

She just nodded. Matt was already on the way downstairs, curtain rod in hand.

+-+-+-+-+

The drive north was a lot more laborious than Foggy was comfortable with. Matt was sitting back in the tailbed, the wind whipping all around him, making the ends of his red scarf flutter. Foggy could see him in the side mirror, looking fairly content as he leaned out around the side of the cab.

He was driving slowly, trying to avoid having to swerve too much. Matt was having a bad enough time with the whole carsickness thing. Until Matt yelled at him over the diesel engine noise, “Foggy, move a lot more!”

“I can’t go any faster, Matt!” he yelled back.

“More faster, this not good!”

Maybe Matt had a point. At this rate it’d take fucking forever. He steered around another abandoned car in the street, then pushed down on the gas pedal. The truck obediently picked up speed. Matt held his face into the airstream and grinned. Jesus Christ, that man.

And then Matt took off his scarf, straightened up, and held it out, both ends flapping wildly around him. It looked like he was laughing.

“Matt, don’t do that!” Foggy yelled, trying to keep his eyes on the road.

“No worry, Foggy!” he called back. It was mostly muffled.

“Fuck you, _all_ the worry.”

They made it to the Walgreens in just about half an hour. Matt didn’t even look pale when he hopped off the tailbed, already on the way inside through the sliding door that stood open just enough to squeeze through.

Foggy had never been to this particular one, but he trusted Matt’s judgment. It still looked halfway decent—not like some of the others stores where all the shelves were overturned and discarded goods littered the floor.

Matt was already determinedly strutting through the aisles, stuffing things into his backpack. Foggy went looking for the OTC meds section. It was also remarkably well stocked. Matt really knew his shit, and Foggy couldn’t even say why this still surprised him.

He took the two Day/NyQuil twin packs that were least expired, three jars of Vicks VapoRub, vitamin supplements, plus all the pain meds he could find. He was leafing through some of the other medication packets when Matt sidled up to him.

“Foggy, you find?”

“Yeah, I got the NyQuil and some other stuff, what did you get?”

“Tish—sh…”

“Tissues?”

“Yes. More things. In, mm… _not_ a lot apartment.”

Foggy wasn’t sure what that meant, but it didn’t really matter. “Any food?”

“Yes. Want to see?”

“No, it’s cool, we’ll take a look when we get home. I wanna look for a few more things for Karen’s cold.”

Matt joined him as they systematically checked the aisles. Foggy picked up a few more items. His backpack was going to be bulging by the time they got out of there. Matt bounded off and came back after a moment. “Foggy, come.”

He led Foggy to the prescription counter and the adjacent store room. Fuck yeah, prescription painkillers and antibiotics! They also had alcohol wipes and saline bags, even lactated Ringer’s solution, sutures, needles, syringes. And then he hit the jackpot. Levodopa. Dopamine agonist. Matt would be so jazzed to get a little more tremor-free time!

He grabbed the whole package and pocketed it, making a mental note to stash it away for a special occasion. How far away was Christmas now?

Matt was rummaging around in a heap of what looked like discarded junk in the corner when suddenly he whipped his head around. A low growl escaped his throat, and Foggy knew this couldn’t be good.

“What is it?”

“Ferals.”

“How close?”

“Coming. Here. A lot.”

Shit, shit, _shit_. “What do you wanna do?”

“Truck. Now!”

+-+-+-+-+


	2. It's A Long, Long Get-Away

Foggy picked up his stuff and started jogging, Matt a few steps ahead with his curtain rod in hand, but they were already too late. A group of ferals had piled inside the Walgreens, cutting off their access to the outside. In his panic, Foggy counted five, maybe six.

They looked furious. Angry. Angrier than most ferals he’d seen. Matt’s chest rolled with an undulating growl full of menace and determination that effortlessly synced with those of the other ferals.

They were quickly surrounded, the counter with the cash registers blocking their exit to the parking lot. Matt was holding up the curtain rod in front of him, circling Foggy like a bared-teeth tigress protecting her cubs. Foggy had his rifle drawn, but didn’t dare shoot it. At this range, the sound could easily damage Matt’s eardrum, and then they’d be fucked ten times over.

Every noise the other ferals made, Matt returned, twice as loud and three times as vicious. Foggy knew what they were saying even if there weren't words being thrown around. _Back the fuck off. This is mine. I'll fucking kill you._

Matt made himself into a slowly moving barrier, protecting what was his, hands gripping and re-gripping the curtain rod as his eyes darted about wildly. He reached back with his shaking hand to keep Foggy behind him, and Foggy rushed to comply. This wasn't his area of expertise. He would defer to the professional.

Finally, one of them moved, but it was behind them, and Foggy didn't see it but Matt _sensed_ it, and whirled around, swinging out with the full length of the rod over the top of the counter and nailing the oncoming feral right in the mouth. It yelped and skittered off; something rattled along the floor and Foggy hoped it was a tooth.

Matt kept himself at Foggy’s side, barely an inch away, and God, he was one scary motherfucker when he was like this. When the virus thrummed through his body, strengthening the tremor, weakening his humanity, bringing him as close to truly feral as Foggy would ever see him. There was no plateau to be found here. Just a flat expanse of wasteland dappled with equal amounts of sunshine and shadow.

“Foggy, truck,” Matt ground out with a fair bit of force and struggle, wrestling his vocal cords into speech instead of the snarl that they so badly wanted to make. “Truck.”

“I can't,” Foggy answered, trying to breathe slower. “They're cutting it off.”

“Truck, now,” it was an order, spat to the side because Matt wasn't facing him. “I fol—fol—follow. Foggy, truck, now!”

Another feral slipped closer, trying to get in behind the registers where they were cornered. Foggy could see the drool dripping from its chin, and that—that frightened him more than anything else. But there was Matt, furious and wild, loosing a snarl of warning that Foggy could feel rattle in his own fucking chest. It made him feel simultaneously horrified and relieved.

The feral snapped its jaws and tossed its head, responding to Matt's obvious warning with an even more obvious roar of challenge. If Matt had hackles, every single one of them would be goddamn raised, Foggy knew. His growl got deeper and far more dangerous. Foggy already knew it, but now it was impossible to not see: Matt did _not_ like to be challenged. The surrounding ferals edged in closer, like wolves.

Foggy was going to piss his fucking pants.

But Matt retreated slowly until his back softly collided with Foggy's chest. He removed his good hand from the curtain rod for a short second to slap the countertop once. “Over,” he barked. “Go! I follow!”

In the split-second of distraction, the challenging feral lurched forward, teeth snapping, and as Matt whirled round to beat it back, another one scrambled over the countertop. “Go, Foggy!” he barked again, his voice half Matt's and half the purpose-filled creature that he'd been turned into, and Foggy had to comply.

He felt himself moving almost automatically, adrenaline bursting hotly through his system as he jerked himself back and pulled himself up onto the countertop. He looked back to the broken doorway—clear, now, because Matt had their attention. Matt always had their attention. For a few seconds as he stood on the countertop, he hesitated, half-lifting the rifle, considering firing it. There were a lot of easy shots, but—

One of them came lumbering in his direction, breaking off from the rest of its pack, and Foggy scrambled backwards, dropping down off of the counter. He hurried backwards and the feral moved faster in response, and suddenly Matt was behind it, clocking it hard in the temple with the curtain rod—the damn thing was slick on one end with blood already—and following up with a heavy kick that sent it face-first into the cigarette display.

Foggy heard that too-familiar roar of, _“Not yours!”_ and took his chance. He fled. The doorway out to the parking lot was clear, thank fucking God, and he staggered out into the cold air and tried to fight back his panic. He couldn't believe the fucking parking lot was empty, and he prayed that it would stay that way as he sprinted to the truck, backpack slapping against his shoulder.

He was out of breath from panic as he got to the truck door, opened it, and clambered in, throwing everything he had on him onto the seat. Twisting the keys in the ignition, he winced at the sound of the engine roaring obediently to life. If there were any other ferals nearby, they would have definitely heard that.

Then again, they'd probably been approaching ever since him and Matt had gotten here. It was a troubling thought that he didn't have time to worry about it right now.

The truck’s diesel engine chugged rhythmically under the engine hood as he leaned forward and peered out the windshield, trying to slow his panting breath. His eyes were fixed on the front door of the Walgreens, he let his gaze roam frantically around the edges of the building. Where the hell was Matt? What exit would he be able to find? Why was it taking so fucking long?

His fingers drummed a harsh, jumpy rhythm into the steering wheel. A barrage of swear words came hissing through his teeth, followed by a nervous, “Come on, Matt.”

And then, like a flash from on high, there was movement near the edge of the roof, and three seconds later, a low, metallic thud and an clearly audible yelp. The truck shook from something jumping onto the tailbed, and Foggy’s heart barely had a chance to keep up with the surprise. He looked through the rear window. A shock of brown hair. Red scarf. It was Matt.

He didn’t have time for anything else. Ferals were already piling out of the Walgreens, so Foggy floored it. The engine revved, and he hoped Matt was grabbing onto something back there.

They shot out of the parking lot, a horde of growling ferals making a half-assed attempt at giving chase, knowing they wouldn't be able to catch a moving vehicle. Foggy drove as fast as he could, trying to steal glances at Matt through the rearview mirror. There was no time to look closely, but at least Matt was grabbing onto the edge of the tailbed rail with one hand.

Foggy’s heart was pounding in his chest like a fucking woodpecker on speed, and he drove like a madman, bumping over dead bodies and other debris in the street. The truck jumped wildly. He didn’t care. He just wanted to get the fuck out of there. He thought he heard a few muffled noises from the back, and, shit. Maybe Matt was injured. He probably was. Foggy slowed down as much as he dared.

Another half mile, and he pulled into the bay of an abandoned car wash. He was calling Matt’s name even before he made it to the back of the car. He only got a grunt in reply.

He peered over the rail. “Buddy, are you okay?”

“No,” came a strangled response, and Foggy’s worry meter instantly shot up at least ten notches.

And then he saw Matt cowering there, awkwardly cradling his right arm with his shaking left, holding it at an odd angle slightly away from his body. “Jesus, Matt.” He climbed into the back of the truck as quickly as he could. “Let me see.”

Matt’s face was all pain, and he shrank away like a trapped, frightened animal. Foggy’s heart leapt in his chest. “It’s okay, Matt, you gotta let me take a closer look.”

Matt scrunched his eyebrows together even tighter but didn’t budge this time. Foggy carefully felt along the shoulder joint. Matt let out a high whine when he touched it. Dislocated. Awesome. He’d need Karen’s help to reduce it. It was still at least three miles back to their apartment.

He looked closer, taking in the scrapes, cuts and bruises covering Matt’s face. Pretty minor at first glance. Nothing that a butterfly bandage couldn’t fix. He gently tapped Matt’s leg to get his attention.

“Matt, buddy. Your shoulder is dislocated. It popped out of its joint. I need Karen to help fix it. Are you injured anywhere else?”

Another grunt, then, “Hand, mm, arm.”

“The same one?”

“No.”

Shit. The left one. Both arms injured. Geez, Matt. “What else?”

“Face?”

“Yeah, those are just minor cuts. That it?”

“Yes.”

“Okay, come on, I want you in the cab with me.”

“No.” It came out low and pitiful.

“Matt, there is no way in hell I’m gonna let you ride on the tailbed with a dislocated shoulder. Come on, it’s not that far.”

Matt just pressed his lips into a thin line and didn’t move. Time to get out the boss-dad-Foggy voice. “Matt, I mean it. Come on. Please. I’ll help you, tell me what to do.”

“Hurts. Don’t want.”

“Yeah, dude, I get it. That has to hurt like hell. But the faster we get back to the apartment, the faster I can fix it. Help me out here, Matt.”

He went back to the tailgate and opened it, making it easier for Matt to get off the truck. Foggy held out his hand. “Come on, Matt. Nice and easy.”

He inched closer, movements slow and careful. Foggy helped him off the tailbed. Matt grunted, his face still crumpled in that painful grimace. Foggy wanted to pump all the painkillers they’d just pilfered into him all at once.

Matt whimpered a lot the rest of the way. Foggy tried to drive as carefully and fast as possible, which, really… wasn’t all that possible. Post-apocalyptic Brooklyn was, quite literally, a wasteland.

They eventually made it back to the apartment. Karen didn’t meet them down in the garage, so Foggy figured she was still out of it. Which sucked, cause a helping hand would’ve been real useful right about now.

The door to the apartment thumped awkwardly against the wall when Foggy kicked it open with one foot, an incapacitated Matt half draped around him. It had probably woken Karen, who shot upright on the couch when she realized what she was looking at. “Oh my God, what happened?!”

“A fucking pack of ferals happened.”

“Are you okay?”

“Do we _look_ okay? Matt dislocated his shoulder. I need you to help me reduce it.”

She was already scrambling off the couch. “What do you need me to do?”

He gently deposited Matt on the futon, who was still cradling his arm like it didn’t belong to his body. Foggy started digging around for one particular medical book. He scanned through the register, then leafed through one of the chapters to find the page he needed. He showed it to Karen. “This is how it’s supposed to be done.”

“You’ve never done this before?”

“Once, way back when. Hardly enough to be an expert. Plus, he was sedated at the time, and it was just me, and it was also fucking awful.”

She was studying the illustration that was depicted there. “We’ll need some kind of sling for this.”

“Yeah. A bed sheet. Or a big towel.”

Matt let out a growly whine, and it pierced right into Foggy’s heart. Shit, yeah, he was in pain.

Karen vanished into the storage room and came back with a crumpled sheet. Foggy didn’t even want to know where it had come from. To Matt, he said, “Okay, buddy, we need to get you out of those clothes to do this.”

Matt wasn’t pleased to hear this. He probably had a pretty good idea what was coming. His face didn’t betray the dread and trepidation.

It took way too long, with way too many whimpers to finally have his naked torso exposed. The multitude of scars there still gave Foggy a sizeable lump in his throat. Karen hovered close-by with the bed sheet, and Foggy took it from her.

“Matt?” he said softly.

Matt’s head sluggishly turned in his direction. He was wading through a haze of pain.

Foggy went on. “I have a bed sheet here. We’re gonna loop that around your torso under your arm for counter-traction. Karen is gonna pull on it. I will pull at your arm so we can pop the bone back into the socket. You need to lie down for this, on your back. Are you okay with that?”

Something rippled across his face, Foggy wasn’t sure what. Distaste, fear, pain, terror, all of it at once? But Matt wasn’t stupid. “Yes, Foggy,” he said quietly. Another punch in Foggy’s gut.

“Do you want pain meds? Sedation? Cause it’s gonna hurt, buddy. A lot.”

“No!” he said, suddenly panicked.

“Shh, it’s okay. I’m not gonna sedate you if you don’t want it. I took a vial of intravenous Dilaudid from the Walgreens, I could give you that. It’s a painkiller. It’ll work quickly, take the edge off.”

“No,” Matt flat-out refused.

“Are you sure? It will really hurt.”

“I am sure,” Matt affirmed.

Shit, man. This was gonna go up on the list of the-worst-things-I’ve-done-to-Matt. Since the flare gun, at any rate. But there was no putting it off. Had to be done. Now.

He softly ran a finger along Matt’s left upper arm to get his attention. He flinched, and so did Foggy. “Okay, buddy. You need to let go of your arm so we can get the sheet under it. Can you do that?”

He did, and the whimper he let out was enough to let tears shoot into Foggy’s eyes. Karen helped him gently slide the sheet around Matt’s torso, trying to touch the dislocated arm as little as possible.

Foggy gave his next instruction, voice gentle and choked. “Okay. Lie down, Matt.”

He did. The only sound escaping him was a breathy huff, and that was even worse than the whimper. Foggy gently adjusted the bed sheet, then told Karen where to stand.

“Okay, so when I say ‘pull’, start pulling diagonally upward. Gently, but firmly. No matter what happens, don’t let go. He’ll probably scream. Keep pulling unless I tell you to stop. You got that?”

“Yeah.” He was being too condescending, he knew, but she knew better than to get huffy. She grabbed the end of the sheet, and her feet shifted slightly, as if she was priming for Matt to attack her. Not a baseless worry. Ferals tended to snap and lash out. He knew Matt wouldn't, but she didn't.

Foggy briefly cupped Matt’s cheek with one hand, then wrapped both of them around Matt’s right wrist and lower arm. He wasn’t ready for this. _So_ not ready. Fuck you, Matt. Why did he always have to play the hero? Why?!

Fuck it. Shoulder. Pain. Reduction. Now.

“Pull,” he said to Karen.

He felt the tug right through Matt’s arm and pulled it toward him. The scream that tore from Matt’s throat was piercing and pure agony and bounced off the walls of the apartment. It was the worst thing Foggy had ever heard. He ignored the tears that were running down his face and kept pulling.

It took too many eternities, and he didn’t dare look at Matt’s face. Cause he knew he’d let go if he did. He finally felt a soft pop. “Karen, stop,” he said, and it came out like a sob.

She let go, and he let go, and Matt just whimpered like an animal after being tortured for days on end, curling up on his left side as if to hide from further pain. Foggy got up from his crouching position and stumbled two steps back, trying to find something he could hold onto. He wanted to puke, swallowed down against the bile threatening to bubble up.

Karen was kneeling by Matt’s head, softly running her fingers over his cheeks. “It’s all done, Matt. It’s over.” She was wiping away his tears.

Foggy sucked in a shaky breath and tried to compose himself. _Don’t fall apart now, Nelson_. _You’re still needed._ He was by Karen and Matt’s side in a few quick steps. “Hey, buddy,” he said, his voice too unsteady, his fingers brushing Matt’s hairline. “Does it feel better?”

Matt tried to lift his arm, but Foggy shushed him. “No, don’t move it yet. It’ll be sore for a while. I just need you to tell me if it’s back where it belongs.”

“Yes,” Matt said quietly. “It hurts.”

“I know it does. I’ll give you some Tylenol, okay? It’ll help.”

“Don’t want,” Matt immediately grumbled, but Foggy was going to ignore that. Gentle pleading would do it. It usually did.

“Can you sit up? Carefully?”

Matt grunted, and Foggy gently took Matt’s left lower arm to assist him. He could now see the wrist was swollen; he avoided touching it. When Matt was sedentary, he gave it a closer look.

“Is it broken, Matt?”

“No.”

“Sprained then. Did you fall on it?”

“Feral. Tried to… mm. Attack, try to def-defend. It worked not… not good.”

Translation: A defensive maneuver gone belly-up. Cause… six fucking ferals. That Matt all took on by himself. Foggy suddenly felt like an ass for running like a frightened fucking coward. He gently tried to bend Matt’s wrist in all directions until Matt’s sharp intakes of breath and growls told him to stop.

This would be a case for the Arnica ointment. They’d gone through at least two tubes of it in the past few weeks. Matt constantly came back with bruises and mild sprains.

Karen went to the kitchen, then came back with a towel and a bowl of water. “Here, Foggy, for cleaning him up,” she said, putting the bowl on the table.

“You can help doing it, you know.”

She took a step back. “No, it’s fine. You’re better with that.”

He nodded. She still wasn’t all that comfortable with touching him. It probably had to do with that. He dipped the towel into the water and wrung it out, gently started cleaning the scrapes and cuts on Matt’s face. Matt closed his eyes and didn’t make any sound, weakly tapping the knuckle of his sprained arm's thumb along the edge of the crumpled sheet in his lap.

When Foggy was done cleaning his face, he looked at the cuts more closely. Four of them needed more attention. He was glad he’d grabbed more of the butterfly bandages at the Walgreens.

“Can you help me with these?” he asked Karen, waving them in her direction.

She hesitated, but complied. Foggy had explained to her how to do it. Between the two of them, they ended up using a total of ten.

When they were done, Matt opened his eyes and turned his head in Karen’s direction. He hummed softly. Something bothered him. “Karen. You are still warm.”

She smiled, even looked a little abashed. “Yeah, Matt, and you are seriously beaten and battered. I think that’s worse than a low-grade fever.”

“You rest. I _am_ okay.”

Foggy cut in, “No, you’re not, jackass... but you have a point. So, Karen… why don’t you go lie back down on the couch? I’ve got this.”

“No, Foggy, it’s fine. I can help.”

“With what? None of these need stitches. It’s just the wrist now, I’ve got that covered. And, uh, I mean… How are you? Are you okay?”

She let out a little laugh. “Yeah, Foggy, I’m fine. The cold still sucks balls, but, well… I think you better concentrate all your worry on our little feral disaster child here.”

Matt grumbled, “I’m not disaster.” Diss-ass- _turr._

Foggy sighed. “You totally are. Jumping on a truck with a dislocated shoulder. Geez, man.”

“No. Not. Was not disl—lo…” He gave up on the word. “I jump. _Into_ truck. I am awesome.”

Foggy couldn’t help but laugh out loud at that. “You are. A little. No, a lot. But still. Are you saying you dislocated your shoulder when you landed on the truck?”

“Yes. I fuck up.”

“Jesus Christ, Matt.”

He gave Foggy one of his impish grins. “I am awesome.”

Was that actual sarcasm? No, it couldn’t be. Just Matt being a silly, self-satisfied derpface. “Stop saying that. Dislocating your shoulder by landing on a tailbed is not _awesome_. It’s terrifying. Don’t do it again, okay?”

“Awesome,” he muttered once more.

“ _Not_ awesome,” Foggy countered.

“Foggy, where is packpack?”

“It’s _back_ pack, Matt.”

“Packpack,” he repeated.

Foggy just groaned. “No, we’re not done here. I’m gonna bandage your wrist.”

There were more grumbles from Matt, which wasn’t entirely unexpected. Foggy was surprised that Matt would even let him wrap his wrist in an ACE bandage. But, well, they’d been through this a few times already. Maybe he'd learned to appreciate that a certain amount of immobilization tended to keep the pain at bay.

Matt stayed silent through Foggy’s careful ministrations. He gave him an extra hair ruffle when he was done, knowing that Matt always liked having fingers in his hair. It sent up a little cloud of dust.

“There, bud. You’re all good to go. But listen, okay? You need to promise me to be careful with your shoulder. I’d love to put your arm in a sling so that you don’t move it so much, but I know you’re gonna hate it, so, uh… you need to keep it still. It needs time to heal. It’s your right arm, and you really, _really_ need it to heal well. That’s super important.”

“Yes, Foggy, I know. I need _it_.”

“Good. Do you want to try the sling, maybe? At least for a day.”

Matt made a grimace between head twitches. “No.”

Foggy allowed himself a small smile. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.”

“Foggy, I will not move arm. I promise.”

“Yeah, your promises usually mean shit. How many times have you said that and done it anyway?”

Matt’s mouth puckered into a pout. Foggy ignored it. And then Matt asked again, “Packpack?”

“You gotta say it right. That’s important, too.”

Matt hummed, clearly annoyed. “ _Back_ pack.”

“They’re still in the truck. I’ll go get them.”

“I come.”

“Matt, what did I say about your shoulder? Your other arm is fucked up, too. Twice over, with the tremor _and_ the sprain.”

“I come. Will not work. Just see.”

Foggy was torn. Matt moving around a lot really wasn’t the best idea right now, but the dude was just so curious. And clingy. Especially if he got hurt. Clingy times thirty.

Foggy looked over at Karen, who was back to lying on the couch under her blankets, meeting his gaze. He threw a questioning shrug at her. _What do I do?_

“Matt?” Her voice was muffled and strange sounding from her clogged sinuses. But she was a determined little trooper when she said, “I read a little while you were gone. You remember _Dune_ and how Jessica became a Reverend Mother? I can tell you a bit more about that now. You wanna hear it?”

Fuck yeah, of course he did. “Yes, Karen.”

“Wanna come over here?” She tucked her legs up so that there was room at the foot end of the couch. Matt obediently followed her unspoken command, his right arm pressed to his ribs. Showing Foggy, ‘Look, I’m not moving my arm. I’m keeping my promise.’

Foggy nodded to her and gave her a thumbs up. They were becoming a pretty great team. No, not becoming. They _were_ a pretty great team.

Down in the garage, Foggy double-checked the door, because they’d been in a rush when they came in. He re-locked it, then grabbed his and Matt’s backpack, and the curtain rod. He couldn’t believe Matt had actually held onto it the whole time, even jumped into the truck with it.

He loved that fucking thing. Foggy grinned. It wouldn’t mean much to Matt, but they should find a way to make it even more badass. Like spray-painting it red or black. Or red _and_ black. Find some handlebar tape in a bike store and make it into a kickass feral Daredevil rod. He made a mental note to ask Karen if she had any spray paint stashed away.

Back upstairs, it was all domesticity made of major _aw_ moments. Matt leaning back against the couch armrest at one end, Karen curled up against the other, their feet almost touching. Karen watched Foggy as he placed the backpacks next to the coffee table and the curtain rod in its usual spot. She finished her sentence. Something about a Fremen lover. He’d missed a few of her _Dune_ chapter recitals, so he wasn’t sure what was going on anymore.

Foggy clapped his hands together. “All right, children. Christmas presents. Who’s in?”

Karen struggled to sit up. Matt came over to the table, pulling a pained face as he did so. Foggy remembered he wanted to give him some Tylenol. Oh well, maybe later. Matt was looking way too excited. He got such a kick out of unboxing his loot. Foggy started with his own backpack, placing all the items on the coffee table.

“Okay, so I’ve got a shit-ton of meds and medical supplies. Nothing too exhilarating, but there’s prescription painkillers and a lot of really useful shit that I hope we’ll never need but probably will. Oh, and shampoo and shower gel. Deodorant, too.” Then he held up the two-bottle pack to Karen. “NyQuil _and_ DayQuil. Two for the price of one. You’re welcome.”

Her mouth formed into a lopsided smile. “Awesome, thanks.”

“There’s more. Vicks VapoRub. Petroleum jelly for your nose. Cough syrup. Nasal spray. Theraflu. And vitamins.”

Karen raised her eyebrows, clearly impressed. “Wow, that’s more than my mom would have ever thought of.”

Foggy shrugged. “Well, they say I’m the medic around here. There’s a reason Matt made me go.”

And then it was Matt’s turn to go through his backpack, which was considerably more interesting. It was stuffed to the brink, and even Foggy was curious what his little treasure trove would yield. He helped Matt unpack it.

In terms of food, there were four pots of Pot Noodles (all Chicken & Mushroom flavor), two packages of long-grain rice, five packages of Ramen noodle soup (different flavors), a can of squeeze cheese (cheddar), a bottle of root beer and a Sprite, a box of wintergreen Tic Tacs, a round container with instant cappuccino, and a bag with eucalyptus candy. All past the expiry date, of course.

The non-food items were, as usual, an odd collection of completely unrelated things: a box full of black binder clips, five packets of assorted post-its in different sizes, three clicky ballpoint pens with a grooved rubber grip, a shockingly pink lipstick (L'Oreal Paris – Pink Flamingo), a make-up brush, a rainbow-colored Koosh ball, three four-packs of AA batteries (go Matt!), a lime green shower puff, two table-tennis balls (one with a dent), and a blue, hand-shaped teether with a knobbly surface.

The last things at the very bottom were the tissues, a pair of pink-framed swimming goggles, and—strangely enough—a small Barbie-like doll with long, blond hair.

Matt patiently waited until Foggy had put it all on the table, and picked up the tissues with his trembling, bandaged left hand. He held them out to Karen. “Tissues. They smell... mm... they smell, Karen. Good?”

She looked at them. They were the type with lotion. Perfect. “Thank you. These are great, Matt.”

He beamed. Then he gave her the eucalyptus candy. Foggy wondered how he even knew this was gonna help with a cold. Had his hard drive not been completely wiped after all? Or just something where he’d put two and two together?

Then he picked up the doll. One of Foggy’s eyebrows shot up. This should be good. Matt had a sly grin on his face.

“This,” he said as he showed Karen the doll. “New body. Good one. Is woman. Nice hair.”

Both Karen and Foggy laughed out loud. Hers dissolved into a cough she rode out before she could say, “Oh my God, Matt. That’s hilarious. Thank you. It’s awesome, I love it. She looks so much healthier than me. I wanna swap bodies right away.”

Foggy started sorting through his medical supplies, started putting them away. Karen was already at the DayQuil. Matt came ambling over. “Count, Foggy?”

“Yeah, if you want. But don’t—”

“Is okay. Will not use arm.”

Together they restocked Foggy’s supplies. It looked good. He was happy with their yield, at least. Matt kept telling him all the numbers. He was getting really good at it. When Karen opened the package of eucalyptus candy, Matt’s head whipped around. Pavlovian response. Cause, hell yeah, food!

“You guys want some?” Karen offered.

Foggy took one. So did Matt. Foggy had a thought. “Matt, those taste really strong. Eucalyptus, it’s, uh… it has a sharp taste. Tangy. Maybe you wanna lick it first before you pop it into your mouth.”

Matt was intrigued now, but couldn’t get the individual paper wrapper to come off with only two fifths of his arms working. Foggy gently took the candy from him and unwrapped it, holding it back out to him. It had a whitish-grey color, though Foggy suspected it would originally have looked more green than grey. Sort of like the sky.

Matt sniffed it, jerking his head back at the strong aroma. Then, like Foggy had suggested, he licked it carefully. “Hm.”

“Is that a good ‘hm’, or a bad one?”

“It tastes.”

“Yeah, man, everything tastes. Do you like it?”

“Don’t know.” He licked it again, sucked a little at one end. He probably liked the sugar.

Karen popped hers into her mouth. Matt followed suit. If maybe only to impress Karen, Foggy couldn’t tell. Matt drew his face into a grimace, reminiscent of licking a slice of lemon. But then he stuck with it and sucked more on it. “Foggy, cold.”

“No, it’s not cold. It just feels like that. It’s the menthol. It feels cold on your tongue.”

“Why?”

Oh, that was a good question. “I don’t know. Some kind of chemical reaction?”

Matt wrinkled his nose and drew in a deep breath, then wriggled his nose around. “Feels. Don’t know. Nose… feels… mm.”

“It frees up your sinuses. Makes you breathe more easily. That’s why it’s good for colds.”

Matt turned his head in Karen’s direction. “Karen, you like? Make bitter?”

“Better, Matt.”

“Make better?”

“Yeah, it helps.”

Matt picked up the VapoRub jar that Foggy had left on the table. “This too men? Tholl?”

Foggy told him, “Yep. It’s even stronger. I’m not sure you’d like it. It smells really, really strong. You rub it on your chest or your back. It helps with a cough, also makes you breathe easier.”

“Karen, you want?”

“Maybe later, before I go to sleep.”

Matt hummed and put the jar back on the table. He turned to Foggy. “You brought for Karen. What is?”

Foggy frowned. But then it dawned on him. Matt was worried, and he wanted to mother-hen, but he needed to know how to do it. He looked at Karen, asked silently for permission. She nodded.

He held up the other jar. “Petroleum jelly. For the sore nose. You remember how your skin was sore from falling in the Hudson? Karen’s nose is really sore from blowing the snot out of it. You put this on, like a lotion.”

He picked up a small glass bottle. “Cough syrup. That helps soothe the cough. Makes you cough less. Truth be told, I’m not really sure it helps all that much. I hope at least it tastes nice.”

Matt sniffed it. “Not bitter.”

“Yeah, it’ll probably have lots of sugar.” Then he took the small plastic container with the nozzle at the top. “This is nasal spray. You hold the nozzle up your nostril and push it down. It makes the liquid spray up your nose. Like a spray bottle. It helps with the swelling of the mucous membranes in your nose so that you can breathe better.”

Matt picked up a small cardboard box, and Foggy explained, “Theraflu. It’s basically like the NyQuil, except it’s like all the medications rolled into one. It comes as a powder, and you mix it with hot water. It’s supposed to have pain relief, fever reducer, cough suppressant, and nasal decongestant all in one.”

“All one,” Matt repeated. “This more very good?”

“I’m not sure. I’m not an expert on over-the-counter meds. You should ask Karen what she prefers.”

She waved it off. “I’ve already had some of the DayQuil. I’m good for now. Do we still have enough gas for the Bunsen burner?”

“Tea?” Matt asked.

“Yes, that would be really nice.”

“Foggy, help?”

By now, Foggy trusted Matt to work the thing alone, but not with two busted arms. “Yeah, come on.”

Foggy let Matt pick out the tea from their assortment box. He held up one of the peppermints. “Men. Tholl.”

“It’s peppermint, but, yeah, they’re both very similar.” Foggy called over to Karen, “You okay with peppermint?”

“Yes,” she called back. “That’s fine.”

Foggy made tea for all of them. Matt seemed to be fond of the green tea, although Foggy was careful not to let him have too much. Because… caffeine. Matt’s weird metabolism and caffeine made for a volatile combination. Especially in conjunction with injury.

Matt was already holding out his left arm when the tea was ready, protesting, “Foggy, I take,” but Foggy didn’t let him.

“No, dude. Go sit down, I’ve got it.”

“Foggy, honey.” It still sounded like hun-nnie.

The post-it note with the Braille writing Matt had stuck there was still affixed to the lid. It made Foggy smile. “It’s yours. It even says so.”

Matt grinned mischievously. Of course he remembered. “Mine,” he confirmed. “I want share with Karen.”

“You’re missing a word.”

“I am?”

“Yes, a ‘to’.”

“I want share to with Karen.”

Foggy sighed. Was Matt ever going to get the hang of this? “Nope.”

“I want to share with Karen.”

“Yes, that’s the one.” He _was_ getting better. Faster, too. This made Foggy immensely proud.

Foggy stirred a spoonful of honey into Karen’s tea, took the square cork pot holder out of one of the drawers, and placed the three mugs on it. He balanced them carefully into the living room.

The blue mug went to Karen with the words, “Peppermint for the cold patient.” Then he handed the black one with the matte finish to Matt. “Green tea for the orthopedics patient.” He took the white one with the incontinence medication logo for himself. “English Breakfast for me. Now it’s a party.”

“Yeah, a regular pity party,” she supplied.

Matt sidled up to Karen and squeezed himself in near her legs. She made room for him. “You still owe me the feral story.”

Foggy let out a heavy sigh. “Don’t wanna relive that, thank you very much. Ask our resident feral here to tell you about how he was being awesome, dislocating his fucking shoulder by jumping onto a truck from twenty feet up.”

Matt looked unhappy. Sarcasm still wasn’t his strong suit, but he was smart enough to pick up Foggy’s mood from his physical cues. And it meant that Matt would have to do a whole lot of talking, which he wouldn’t be happy about either.

“Can I get the short version, at least?”

“Come on, Matt, you tell her.”

“I’m not good tell story.”

“I don’t mind. I just wanna know what happened. Come on, guys. You went out there to get all this stuff for me. You owe me that, at least.”

Foggy stayed silent. He really wanted Matt to get this one. Who reluctantly acquiesced, because it was Karen who had asked, and he had such a soft spot for her.

“I, Foggy, are at Wally. We take,” he pointed at the assorted things still lying on the table, “this. Foggy, I, mm, take pills. Ferals— _the_ ferals come. A lot of ferals come. We run. I fight. Foggy goes the—goes _to_ the truck, I fight a lot. Very too a lot ferals. I go to roof, jump. Foggy is make…” He made a forward-sweeping gesture with his left arm, “… truck move. Is, mm, gravity, Karen. Fuck up arms a lot.”

Yeah, that was surely the short version. But Foggy was curious himself now, cause he’d missed a fair bit of that last part himself. “You took on all those ferals with the curtain rod, huh? How did you get up to the roof?”

“Ferals too a lot, I move. Roof is, mm…” He made a fist with his left hand and then spread his fingers out in an exploding motion. “…is not good. I climb. Go up, outside. The ferals not climb not f-fast.”

“Yeah, okay, I can see that. They looked vicious, man. I still don’t know how you take on a whole pack by yourself.”

“This not good, Foggy,” Matt said emphatically. “Wally not mine more long.”

“Yeah. That one was a good one. Lots of useful stuff. We could have raided a whole lot more stuff if we’d had more time.”

And, shit, that had been the wrong thing to say, cause Matt’s expression crumpled into something dark and unpleasant. He growled, and it was one of those angry, frustrated ones. “I want back. Was mine. Want mine. Not they.”

“Theirs, Matt.”

“Not _theirs_.”

“Oh Jesus, you’re going to go back there, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Foggy.” For Matt, it wasn’t even in question. “My territory.”

“You can’t go back there. Not with a busted shoulder and a sprained wrist.”

“Not go _now_ ,” he insisted. “Go, mm… more long.”

“Later.”

“Go later.”

“A _lot_ later. You need to heal. I’m not even kidding. Remember, this is your right shoulder. Your _right shoulder_.” He emphasized both words. “Which you need. You understand that, don’t you?”

Matt growled some more and grumbled an unintelligible response. Then he nudged Karen’s leg. “Karen, you not say a lot.”

“What do you want me to say? Foggy’s right. I mean, I get it. You hate losing that Walgreens. I hear it was a good one. And the longer you wait, the more difficult it’s gonna be to get it back. But you really do need that shoulder of yours to work. Both arms. Well, no, the whole of you. We need you, Matt. Both of us, and not just because you find us all the food. We need you here with us, okay?”

He let his read roll over to his right shoulder in a strange, exaggerated tilt. “You want me?” he asked slowly.

She stretched her leg out a little so that her foot touched him. “Of course we do, you little weirdo.”

He huffed out a breath. “Am not weirdo.”

“You’re a feral who can talk and interact and who knows how to read and write and do all those human things. You’re a total weirdo. But only in the best way possible.”

“I am a freak?”

Foggy’s head perked up. “Where’d you hear that? Did someone call you that?”

He rolled his head around a little, but then grimaced when it caused pain in his shoulder. “I hear… mm. A lot blocks far, talk.”

“And they were talking about you?”

“Hm. Don’t know.”

Foggy’s forehead pulled into a frown. Had Matt run into other humans who were talking about him? That was weird. Not unheard of, though. And freak would fit. Foggy often wondered what Matt would seem like to other people—running around Brooklyn, humming words to himself, probably babbling a fair amount of word soup, all the while holding his curtain rod and beating the shit out of other ferals encroaching on his territory.

Yeah, _‘freak’_ would describe that pretty well if you didn’t know the amazing person that Matt really was.

“You’re not a freak. So totally not. You’re amazeballs.”

“Amazebe… balls?”

“Yeah. Amazing. Awesome. The best.”

Karen wiggled her toes against Matt’s foot again. “You are. Just look at all the amazing stuff you got me. No one else could do that. Seriously.”

Matt’s expression grew a little less gloomy, but Foggy could still see that damn self-doubt lingering there that he wanted to rip out at the roots and trample on it until it stopped fucking twitching. It was all he could do not to go over there and pull Matt into a forehead hug.

“Hey, Matt?” he said, and Matt’s chin lifted in his direction. “You did good today. Really good.”

That, at least, made a small smile spread across his face, and that was a victory in itself.

+-+-+-+-+

That day, Matt hovered close to Karen the whole afternoon. Foggy loved everything about it. The two of them were good for each other, especially when they were both under the weather and sensitive and vulnerable.

For a while, they played Monopoly. They’d gotten their hands on a _Star Wars_ edition—one of the earlier ones. By now, Matt had the whole board and all the locations and their relation to each other memorized. Karen had marked all the Republic Credits notes with Braille dots in one corner, and Foggy and Karen helped with reading out the Sith and Jedi cards. Amazingly, Matt won almost every single time. Foggy had no idea how he did it.

When bedtime rolled around, Matt went into full mother-henning mode on Karen again. He started cycling through all the meds, crouching by her side.

“Karen, this? Nigh-koo-will?”

She took some of it. He held up the cough syrup. “This. For, mm…” he gently tapped his left fist against his chest, grimacing as he did so. “This help?”

“Yeah, I think so.” She’d coughed a lot during the day. Her voice sounded even croakier.

Matt handed her the bottle and the tea spoon from the empty mug on her makeshift nightstand next to the couch. She took that too.

“Nose,” he said when he picked up the nasal spray. “Is not—is better?”

“Yeah, a little.”

He held the nasal spray up. “You want?”

She smiled. “Matt, this is really sweet and everything, but, really. I’m okay. You don’t need to do this.”

“Hm.” He didn’t like being put in his place. “I want to do.”

“I know you do. And I love it. But this is… Matt, it’s…”

“Too a lot?”

Foggy’s head perked up. Karen was entering dangerous territory now. Any little thing like this could set off another one of Matt’s _‘I’m-not-good’_ moods. They’d already been too close earlier and if it manifested, there’d be pouting, and moping and grunting, and at least half a day would be spent trying to pull Matt out of it. He needed his fucking defense mechanisms back.

But Karen was also smart, and she’d learned a lot about Matt in recent weeks. Foggy watched her shift on the couch, patting the space next to her. “Matt, come sit here for a moment.”

He tilted his head and followed her lead, perched at the edge of the seat as if he wasn’t sure whether he was really welcome there.

She started gently. “Do you remember when we met?”

Foggy felt his eyebrows raise. Well, this could be an awful subject. He chewed his tongue so he wouldn’t jump in and break it up, watching as Matt’s brow furrowed in thought and his eyes slowly searched the floor.

Then he jerked his head in an awkward shake. “Karen, no. Don’t remember this.” His little frown fell just a bit more.

It was then Foggy realized that she wasn't talking about the shelter, when he'd thrown her against a wall and then pinned her to the floor with a knife at her throat. She was talking about before—before the poison and the dust and the sickness. Jesus, it felt like a lifetime ago, and maybe it was. They’d all been forced into different lives because of what had happened, and they were all still adjusting. Foggy didn’t think there’d ever be a time when they weren’t.

Still, this was a sore subject for Matt. Foggy stared at Karen, praying she didn’t misstep, because they could jump from an _‘I’m-not-good’_ mood to a _‘I’ve-lost-fucking-everything-and-thanks-for-reminding-me’_ mood in a very short time.

But Karen just smiled. “Do you want to know how we met?”

Matt shifted slightly on the couch, then angled his face further toward her. His frown didn’t disappear, and all Foggy could think was, _‘Code blue, code blue, abort mission, highway to the danger zone.’_

“Karen... yes,” Matt said, running his thumb along a seam in his jeans.

“Okay.” She pulled her feet up on the couch with her, letting out a little sigh that rattled against the gunk in her chest. “Well, I was very scared. And alone. I didn’t have anybody.” Karen’s voice was as clear as it could get with a cold, which told Foggy that the memory of it didn’t bother her—likely because there were worse memories trapped in her head now. “And you and Foggy showed up, out of nowhere, to help me.”

“Foggy, me?” Matt blinked, tilted his head. He lifted his shaking, bandaged hand. “Before? This?”

“Yes. Before that.”

“Hm.” He settled his hand in his lap and went for the seam in his pants again.

“But you came to me, Matt, you and Foggy. You came and helped me. You guys made me feel like nothing could ever hurt me.” Foggy could tell that she was trying not to use any words that Matt wouldn’t understand. “What I’m saying, Matt, is that you’ve been doing this ever since we met. Helping me. Helping others. And you’re really, really good at it.”

Matt tilted his face to the floor. It was getting dark, but Foggy thought that even in the dim light of the apartment, Matt’s expression was half thoughtful and half bashful.

“You’ve always helped people. And you’re helping me now, and you’ll never know how much I appreciate it.” She shifted a little closer to him and gestured to his bandaged arm. “But you also need to take care of yourself, okay?”

Foggy finally spoke up from where he was reclined on the futon. “Thank you! I’ve been saying that for months, now.”

Matt grumbled. “Am taking care.”

With a soft laugh, Karen shook her head. Her hand came up as if to pat his shoulder, but she stopped herself short and placed her hand back in her lap. “If you took as good care of yourself as you do with us, you’d never be hurt again, Matt. That’s all that's bothering me, okay? You haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Hm.” His expression did seem a bit lighter, at least. “Foggy say same.”

“Yeah? And is he lying to you? Am I lying to you?”

Matt huffed, lowering his head a little, his eyes darting along the floor. “No,” he admitted, after a long minute. “Not lie.”

“Lying.”

“Not lying.”

“See? There’s no reason to feel like you’ve messed up, because you haven’t.”

“Messed up sh... arm. Arms.”

Karen laughed, and it turned into a cough. “That is true.” She shifted again, bundling up her pillow from the other side of the couch. “And I know you can see fine, but it’s getting really dark in here, and we could all use some sleep.”

Matt hummed, not yet ready to budge. “You tell, Karen? Tell me? Tell me if you need?”

“Yes, I will tell you if I need anything, Matt.”

At that, he finally seemed at least a little satisfied, and went over to the futon where Foggy already lay under the covers. He crawled in with a sigh and burrowed himself in their blankets.

Foggy waited a moment for Matt to get comfortable, closed his eyes, and waited for sweet sleep to envelop him, but Matt seemed to be having some kind of problem. The familiar nose against Foggy’s shoulders was conspicuously absent; instead there were moans and grumbles and a lot of really, really malcontent noises. And a whole lot of restless shifting around.

Foggy turned onto his back to try and see what had Matt so agitated. He whispered, “Hey, buddy, what’s the matter?”

“Hurts, Foggy.”

“Your shoulder?”

“Yes.”

Something clenched around Foggy’s heart. “Hey, come here, Matty.”

He turned towards Matt and gently reached out to pull him closer, and then their foreheads met. They lay like that for a long moment before Foggy’s hand found its way into Matt’s hair. He let his fingers softly run through it—it was getting longer again—and Matt just… well, if he was a cat, he would be purring now.

Foggy just wanted to make the dude happy. Wanted him to have all the few little good things left in this world, and with Matt’s arms both injured, he wasn’t sure how to do that without causing more physical pain.

“Can you lie on your belly? I wanna try something.”

Matt grunted, then shifted around, his right arm still pressed to his ribcage. He drew a pillow closer and arranged himself on it. Foggy peeled the blankets away from Matt’s back.

“Are you comfortable, Matt?”

“Hnngh.” Yeah, he had his face in the mattress.

“Yes or no?”

“Yes.”

Okay. Good. “Tell me if you like this, okay?”

Foggy kneeled next to Matt and started softly pressing his thumbs into Matt’s lower back, massaging the few places there that weren’t pure skin over bone. He stopped after a few seconds.

“Do you like it?”

“Hmpf.”

“Come on, use actual words.”

“Yes, like a lot.” It was still muffled by the mattress.

Foggy smiled and continued. “This would work better if I could kneel over you. Do you want me to try?”

Cause, yeah, Matt had that thing about being pinned down. Foggy kneeling astride his butt would be doing pretty much that. He didn’t quite know how Matt’s memories worked; the post-Hudson truck disaster might be doing its part, too. “Matt?”

“Don’t know.”

It _was_ a big deal. “I’m gonna try, okay?”

He didn’t protest, so Foggy carefully swung a leg over his body, but Matt bucked under him very quickly with a startled gasp, bandaged hand clawing at the mattress as he tried to get out from under him. “No, Foggy! Scare a lot!”

Foggy immediately moved away, shushing him. “It’s okay, Matt. It’s fine, I understand.”

“Sorry, Foggy. I’m sorry.”

Foggy placed his palm flat on Matt’s lower back and left it there, letting his thumb softly rub in a circle. “Shh, it’s okay. I want you to enjoy this. Please don’t apologize. I’m not mad, I know it’s something you can’t control. It’s just you, Matt. You’re allowed to be you, okay?”

And that was a beautiful thing, too, because he doubted many people had ever told Matt that there was nothing wrong with being who he was. Hell, Foggy had probably been doing pretty much the opposite when he’d repeatedly berated Matt for his Daredeviling adventures. Being selfish was easy back then. Being angry at Matt being Matt even more so.

He drew in a breath and continued his backrub while kneeling next to Matt, who pretty much melted under his hands. Foggy moved his fingers around, tried not to think about all the scars he could feel.

He gently massaged Matt’s back and felt him relaxing inch by inch under Foggy’s touch. This was all he ever wanted, for Matt to get a little bit of the TLC he deserved.

It didn’t take long until his breathing evened out and pulled him into the throes of sleep. Foggy let his hand linger there for a moment longer, feeling Matt’s torso lift and sink beneath his palm, before he draped the blankets back over his friend and made himself comfortable next to him.

Matt mumbled something, a low rumble of incomprehensible words, and then scooted closer until he could rub his face in Foggy’s back. Yep, he was where he belonged. Matt’s little happy place. Foggy hoped he could find a home there more often.

A ball of warmth spread through Foggy’s chest at their strange, codependent, inseparable bond. He closed his eyes and enjoyed the small puffs of breath warming his back under the blankets, their steady rhythm lulling him to sleep.

+-+-+-+-+


	3. There's A House Built Out In Space

Foggy’s night was too short with too many interruptions. If it wasn’t Matt’s grumbling and shifting around next to him, it was Karen’s coughing that kept him up. He wished he’d grabbed a packet of those foamy earplugs at the Walgreen’s the day before.

By the time the sun rose the next morning, he figured he’d gotten four hours of sleep tops. And of course now that he was actually wide awake, Matt was snoring lightly behind him. Karen moved around on the couch, he heard her reaching for a tissue to blow a whole lot of disgusting gunk into it. Yummy.

“How’re you feeling?” he asked her in a low voice.

“Still kinda gross and congested. Think the fever’s gone.” Her voice was that odd mixture of squeaky and hoarse. Like it might go away entirely during the day.

“You’ve been coughing a lot.”

“Did I keep you up? I’m sorry, Foggy.”

He sighed. “It’s okay. Not your fault. I’ll join Matt for one of his naps later, maybe. Dude’s been tossing and turning all night with his fucked up shoulder, too. This place needs to stop turning into a sick bay, give Foggy Nelson a goddamn break.”

“Where’s the petition, I’ll sign it.”

“Two signatures and a half-feral’s handprint. It’s gonna change the world.”

She gave a short chuckle that migrated into a longer cough. From the corner of his eye, he saw her sitting up, hacking up things he didn’t want to think about. She made her way into the bathroom.

Foggy closed his eyes and resigned to his fate. More sleep was not on the immediate agenda. Awesome. He’d have to borrow one of Matt’s airplane blindfolds later. He sometimes used them as face-warmers, and Foggy could never decide whether to find that freaky or hilarious.

“Tea or cappuccino?” Karen asked from over in the kitchen. It was amazing they even had a choice, cause this never happened. Maybe the trip to the Wally had been worth it—Matt’s busted arms notwithstanding.

“Cappuccino sounds awesome. Two espresso shots, please. Extra foam.”

“Haha, very funny. FYI: I’m ignoring that.”

Of course, the smell of hot beverages dragged Matt from his sleep. Foggy didn’t know how he did that. Olfactory alarm sensors or some shit. He shifted next to him, letting out a sharp whine when he inadvertently rolled onto his right side.

“Easy, dude,” Foggy warned him. “You’re injured, remember?”

Matt just let out another one of his frustrated signature grumbles. It sounded sleepy. There was drool involved. It was almost adorable, but also gross and a little sad. “Hungry,” Matt mumbled.

“When are you not?”

Karen was there with Foggy’s mug a few minutes later and he eased himself into a sitting position. It smelled faintly of coffee and caramel, a thin layer of bubbly foam at the top. He couldn’t remember when he’d last had instant cappuccino. Or any kind of cappuccino.

Matt was dragging himself halfway upright next to Foggy, his head and nose angled towards the mug. “Smells. Good.”

Foggy had to grin. “Tastes good, too.”

“Can I...? I want. What is?”

“I will tell you if you speak in whole sentences.”

There was a huff of a discouraged sigh from Matt. “Tired, Foggy.”

“Don’t you dare complain. You’re the one who slept all night, compared to the sad bag of shit right here next to you whom you kept up all night with your shifting and moaning and general state of restlessness.”

Matt scrunched his face into a grimace. Foggy gave him a little encouraging tap on the knee. “Shake it off. Speak to me, Matty.”

It took him several long seconds to work out the words. “This smells good. What is _it_ , Foggy?”

That got a wide smile out of Foggy. “It’s the cappuccino you found. Basically, it’s instant coffee, powdered milk and sugar. You mix it with hot water.”

“Can I have... _can_ I have this? Please?”

It was Karen who got up from the couch. “I’ll make you some.”

Matt immediately protested. “No. You not okay. I... mm—make me... for _me_ —my...? Mm.” Another frustrated grunt. The vocabulary just wasn’t there.

Foggy sighed. “You were doing so well there for a moment, Matt.”

Matt tilted his head from side to side, and it still looked fucking weird when did that. Something sullen flitted across his expression. “Not Karen make this. I want to make it.”

Foggy turned to him. “Yeah, not with your stupid arms, you’re not. Here,” he held out his mug. “Have this one, I’ll go make more.”

“No,” Matt protested again. “This your—this is yours.”

“Not anymore, now it’s yours. My gift to you. Suck it up. Well, not literally. Or, well, maybe even literally.”

Matt frowned, and Foggy elaborated. “I meant you can drink it, Matt. It’s nice. You’ll like it. It’s sweet. A little bitter.”

Foggy went to the kitchen and heated up more of the water. He hoped the gas for the Bunsen burner would last a while longer, because having hot things was nice. They’d had a bit of a dry spell after the MREs ran out.

Three rounded spoons of cappuccino powder and hot water produced another mug of sweet deliciousness. Back in the living room, much to Foggy’s surprise, Matt was sitting over on the couch with Karen, both holding their steaming mugs. He was observing her intently, his right arm cradled against his ribcage.

“—doing much better,” Karen finished whatever sentence Foggy had missed.

Matt smiled into his cappuccino. “Not warm, Karen.”

“Nope. Fever’s gone. Thanks to all your meds. Now it’s just the disgusting stuff in my sinuses and lungs, and I’ll beat that too in a few days.”

Matt’s expression looked thoughtful and strained. Foggy knew that one all too well. Looking for words. “Menthol. Cough see... _see_ -roo.”

“Syrup?” she asked.

“Cough syrup,” he repeated, popping the 'p' awkwardly.

“Yeah, those will help.” She looked at him lovingly. Or, well, the Karen version of that. Foggy could it see it shining through at the edges. Her voice was light, breaking at the end from her battered larynx. “You’re mother-henning again. It’s not necessary, Matt.”

He looked slightly baffled at her croaking. “Karen, you speak not... your... mm. Is not—is gone?”

She let out an almost soundless harrumph, barely getting the words out. “Yeah, my voice is going.”

Foggy supplied, “It’s from all the coughing. We better leave her alone, Matt. It’ll come back after a day or two if she doesn’t speak too much.”

The glare Karen shot him was parts punitive, parts resigned. She would hate not being able to talk. It would also make communication with Matt extremely difficult. Foggy figured he’d have to add ‘mute-to-blind translator’ to his resume, too, now. Anyone out there hiring?

Matt lowered his mug and gave Karen what looked uncannily like an encouraging expression. “Not speak is okay. Like me. Words do not come.”

There was something reminiscent of an _aww_ look on her face. Foggy told them, “It’s cool, I’ll translate. More charades for everyone. Now, Matt, come here for a minute, will you? I’d like to look at your shoulder and your wrist.”

It was clear that part wasn’t at top of Matt’s list of favorite things to start the morning with. He pressed his arm closer against his ribcage, as if to show Foggy how resolutely he was _not_ moving it around. Foggy decided to ignore it and instead reactivated the boss-dad-Foggy voice. “Come on, examination time. You know I hate that part as much as you do. Let’s get it over with.”

“Yes, Foggy.” The reluctance was hard to miss.

+-+-+-+-+

It was a quiet day at Casa de Feral Asshole. With Karen forcibly muted, and Matt seldom speaking unless he had to, Foggy contented himself with a lot of humming. For some odd reason, he had Metallica’s _Nothing Else Matters_ in his head. He wished he could remember all the lyrics. Something about never opening yourself that way and words never said. It seemed very apt.

After breakfast, Karen took a shower. Foggy hadn’t said anything, but she looked like she really needed one. She emerged from the garage more properly dressed than she had for days, her head wrapped in a towel turban. When she pointed at the storage room door, he knew he wouldn’t see her again for a while. Her cough was still persisting—a weirdly silent, scratchy sound now, but she was up and active and alert, and that was something.

After Foggy was done with his morning routine in the bathroom, he found Matt exploring the new additions to his tactile collection. It elicited a small grin from Foggy, especially the way Matt lifted his chin in Foggy’s direction as if to ask whether it was okay to use his right hand to touch things. He had his elbow pressed to his side.

Foggy gave him a small nod, and that was enough for them to understand each other. It looked like the Koosh ball would get a good workout.

He picked up the green notebook and went to the kitchen. He hadn’t inventoried their food for a while. That wasn’t all that important when they’d still had all those MREs. But now that it was back to scraps sniffed out by Matt at regular intervals interrupted by enforced recuperation periods, he wanted to keep tabs. Someone had to. And, well, he liked to.

He’d figured Matt would follow him, take up residence in his spot on the counter, but for some reason he didn’t. Maybe the new goodies were more interesting. They probably were. Foggy had to smile again. It was such a Matt thing to do. Even before the whole brainwash, he’d always fiddled with one thing or another.

Metallica kept playing in his head. _‘Never cared for what they do, never cared for what they know, but I know…’_ And then the instrumental bridge came in. Electric guitar and everything. He couldn’t hum that part if he tried.

The list in the notebook kept getting longer, the more cupboards he opened. They were good for at least another two weeks. He rearranged a lot of the items by whether they were ready-to-eat or had to be cooked, by sweet and savory, by essential or nice-to-have.

He even found a cardboard box with cake mix in the back of one of the bottom shelves that must have gotten buried there some time ago. He wasn’t even sure what they wanted to do with it, seeing how they were missing eggs, fat and an oven to bake a cake in. But, hey, chocolate and sugar. He was sure they’d find some use for it.

It took him a while to go through everything. It was also a nice reminder of all the little culinary treasures they had stashed away. He was already trying to work out what would go well together. At least they had options now.

One of his knees popped when he got up from his crouching position. He clapped the notebook shut. It was very quiet in the living room, and he wondered if Matt had lain down for a nap already. Foggy could surely use one, the caffeine from the cappuccino was already wearing off.

But Matt wasn’t sleeping. He was fumbling with something, and it looked awkward with both his arms not completely functional. The box with the black binder clips was open in front of him. He looked deep in concentration as he fiddled with a geometrical shape of some sort in his hands.

When Foggy walked closer, he realized it was a ball Matt had created from the binder clips. The silver clamps were all interlinked with the black clips in between. It look very involved and sophisticated. Mind blown once more by Matt’s intelligence and ingenuity.

“That’s pretty cool, Matt,” Foggy told him.

He smiled bashfully and put another silver clip in place. Foggy happily sat back and just watched him until he closed that last gap and rolled the ball around in his hand. Then he handed it to Foggy. “I made this. You like?”

He looked at it more closely. It _was_ pretty elaborate for the fact that Matt had just basically plucked the design from thin air. “It’s amazing. How’d you learn to do this, buddy?”

Matt gave a little grunt. “Don’t know. My head.”

“Your head seriously is a wonderland.”

“Wonderland, what is this?”

“Means it’s pretty incredible. It can do great things.”

“Can’t make words.”

Foggy chuckled at that. “Yeah, well, that’s one of the few things it actually _can’t_ do, but, hey, look at it this way. I can’t draw for shit. Or play music. No one’s perfect, right?”

“You are... mm, perfect doctor.”

Foggy shrugged. “I don’t know about perfect, but I guess I’m pretty decent, huh? Speaking of which, how’s your shoulder?”

Matt scrunched up his nose. “Is okay.”

“Does it still hurt? Honest answer, Matt.”

“Not a lot. Don’t—I don’t lie.”

Foggy patted him on the thigh. “Yeah, keep doing that. Lying doesn’t get us anywhere.”

Matt lifted his head. “Foggy, I want _to_ go. Up.”

“To the roof?”

“Yes.”

He grimaced. “I don’t think you’re quite ready for that yet. How would you even get up there without proper use of either of your arms?”

Matt let out another frustrated huff. It meant Foggy was, once more, the fucking voice of reason in this whole messy shindig, and Matt had no argument to prove otherwise.

“Give it a few days, okay? We have plenty of food, so let’s just take it easy for a little while. I know you love being out there, but me? I love having you here. I love when you talk to me and to Karen, cause you know what’s really amazing, too?

“Do you remember when you found me in the Park? You couldn’t string two words together. Look at you now. We’re having whole conversations. You’re reading books. That stuff constantly blows my mind, Matt.”

The tiniest, shiest smile played at the corners of his lips. His fingers were exploring the surface of the teether he was holding. Silence ensued when Matt scrunched his forehead together. Foggy knew it meant he was looking for words. He waited patiently.

“Foggy, you did this. You teach, I learn. Books, talk, everyth- _thing_. I learn, and I... mm. I... Foggy—”

And then Matt turned to him and pressed their foreheads together, and Foggy thought he heard a low, “Thank you,” muttered into his face. He blinked against the tears.

If Matt wasn’t incapacitated, he might have gone in for a real hug, but as it was, he just let one hand find the back of Matt’s neck to give him a good natured squeeze before he pulled back. “Yeah, okay, let’s not get overly sentimental, shall we?”

Matt pulled back too, let out a little scoffed chuckle. “You not like sappy shit, Foggy.”

“Yeah, you got that right, you snarky dork. And, see, this? Snark? I like it.” Foggy lightly tapped a finger against Matt’s head. “Wonderland right there.”

“I am amazeballs.”

“Okay, shut up now.”

Matt’s tone was almost teasing. More than almost. “Amazeballs,” he repeated. It sounded weirdly choppy.

“Shut up.”

“Amazeballs.”

Foggy sighed. “We’re not doing this. Go and... I don’t know, annoy Karen for a while.”

“Amazeballs,” Matt muttered again as he got up from the futon, and there was that shit-eating grin to go with it.

Foggy watched him amble over to the storage room. He heard Matt say, “Karen, I am amazeballs wonderland.”

Foggy’s long-suffering sigh was accompanied by a good deal of eye-rolling. Then he called in their general direction, “Just for the record, I didn’t mean the ‘annoy Karen’ part literally, okay?”

A moment later, Matt’s voice became muffled, which told Foggy he’d gone into the room. He wondered if his translation skills would be needed, but then he figured they’d ask if that was the case. Grown-ups, he had to remind himself. They were all grown-ups. Himself included. It didn’t always seem that way.

It took a mere ten minutes before curiosity won the better of Foggy. He stopped in the doorway, watching Karen hunched over something on her desk—what, Foggy couldn’t see. Matt was sitting on the upturned milk crate, running his fingers over one of Karen’s tools. A tiny screwdriver. He was softly humming to himself.

Foggy frowned. Since when did these two just revel in each other’s company? But, heh, well. Matt was quietly mother-henning again. Was that what it was?

A scraping noise of some sort got Foggy’s attention. He stepped closer. “What are you working on?”

Karen suddenly shot upright and whipped her head around. Her index finger on her lips and her death glare vehemently told Foggy to shut up. He made a surprised face, his mouth frozen in a half spoken word he’d forgotten how to say. He lifted his arms defensively. “Okay, uh. Yeah. Okay.”

Matt’s head came up, his chin titled forward. “Foggy?”

He harrumphed quickly. “Yeah, uhm, I just wanted... wanted to tell you I’m gonna lie down for a nap. I didn’t get much sleep last night.”

And there it was, the frown on Matt’s face. He could tell the white lie. Of course. Nothing went by the little dipshit. “Foggy, you—”

“Matt, don’t. I hate it when you do this.”

“ _Why_ you lie? I know.”

“It’s not a lie. I’m tired. I wanna take a nap. I’m not lying.” He really wasn’t, and Matt should be able to tell that.

“Karen, what you doing?”

She shook her head. Foggy took over. “She can’t talk, remember?”

“What _is_ Karen hide?”

Foggy sighed. “Matt, you know sometimes when people have a reason not to answer something, and so they don’t?”

“Hm. No, Foggy.”

He sighed again—more deeply. “I’m trying to tell you that Karen doesn’t... that there’s a good reason she doesn’t want you to know what she’s doing.”

“Why?”

“Yeah, actually... I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll find out when she wants to show you.”

Karen raised her eyebrows at Foggy, and he wasn’t sure what she was trying to say. Was that approval? Disapproval? She held up a finger, then scribbled something on a piece of paper that she handed to Foggy.

He looked at it. It wasn’t meant for him. “Karen wrote something for you. It says, ‘Matt, it’s a surprise. Please stop asking, I will show you when it’s ready.’”

There was still a hint of discontentment in Matt’s expression. Foggy softly brushed two fingers along his uninjured shoulder. Even in the short few seconds, he could feel the tremor underneath his touch. “Come on, buddy. You wanna lie down with me for a nap so Karen can work on her thing?”

A grunt came from Matt’s throat. An unhappy one. Another displeased grimace on his face, but he acquiesced.

They slept for a full three hours.

+-+-+-+-+


	4. That Thief That Lives Inside Of Your Head

Karen didn’t regain her voice until the next day, and even then it was still croaky and kept giving out in the middle of words. Foggy could tell she hated it.

And she was still working on her “thing”, whatever it was. Foggy had the decency not to pry. Obviously Matt had understood the concept as well. He wasn’t giving her any more surprise visits to the storage room. Which only meant more grief for Foggy, because bored Matt was a pain in the ass, and bored _and_ injured Matt was pretty much a nightmare.

While Karen disappeared into the garage, Matt and Foggy worked through a bit more of _Sherlock Holl-Mas_ together. Foggy had to explain a _lot_ of words. They slept, they ate, they slept some more, they ate some more. Their Casa de Feral Asshole routine on repeat.

In the afternoon, Karen finally emerged from downstairs, ceremoniously hiding something behind her back. Matt was on the futon, his face buried in the mattress, the soft fleece blanket draped over him. Foggy lifted his head from his book and looked expectantly at Karen.

She pointed at Matt. “Is he asleep?”

“What does it look like?”

“It looks like he’s asleep.”

“Yeah, I guess that means he’s asleep.”

She gave him the finger.

“Nice,” Foggy commented, then pointed in the general direction of her back. “You done with your... whatever it is?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s your cold?”

“Getting there.”

“You want me to wake him?”

She sat down on the couch, putting the thing in her lap, flat and square in shape. She’d even wrapped it in what looked like old newspaper pages. “No, it’s okay. It can wait.”

“Nah. He’ll think it’s worth it.” Foggy nudged Matt’s hip. Twice. “Come on, buddy. Wake up. Karen has a surprise for you.”

It took two more nudges and several groggy grunts until Matt stirred. “Foggy, what?” he protested.

“Karen’s surprise, do you remember? It’s ready. We need you awake for it.”

“Don’t want,” he grumbled sleepily, turning his head in the other direction, curling up into a ball.

Foggy smiled, because he knew drowsy Matt didn’t always mean whatever tumbled from his lips. He nudged him again, pulling the blanket away. “I refuse to believe you don’t want presents, especially if Karen spent hours making them for you. Come on, you’re insulting her right now.” He hoped Matt could interpret the teasing, amused undertone in his voice. “Do you want to insult her?”

“No,” he said, suddenly more alert. He turned to face them, grimacing briefly at the pain the movement caused. “Not in-ss... Mm. Not.”

Foggy had the audacity to elbow him lightly in the ribs.

“Unmgh,” Matt moaned. “Foggy, not.”

“Then get up, dude. Presents. For you. How many more times do I need to say it?”

Matt grumbled a, “For me?”

“Yes, for _you_. Would I wake you otherwise?”

He moved, struggled to get out of the blanket and sit up, his right hand coming up to rub his face—a motion aborted midway by what seemed like a mixture of pain and the memory that he wasn’t supposed to do that. Foggy still noticed.

“How’s your shoulder?”

“Better. Not—doesn’t hurt a lot.”

Maybe he should lower the restrictions a little. “Just be careful with it, okay?”

Matt slid over to sit next to Foggy. “Yes. Needs to heal. Is important.”

“Yep. Now… why don’t you go to see what Karen has for you?”

Over on the couch, Karen held up her present. “I wrapped it and everything.”

Foggy watched how Matt approached her and joined her on the couch, careful not to sit too close. The expression on Matt’s face was expectant. Innocent. Something you’d never have seen on the old Matt’s face, but something that still gave Foggy a warm, fuzzy feeling.

She turned to him and held out the newspaper-wrapped object. “Matt, I made this for you, because you went out there and got all these cold meds for me, and then you got your ass handed to you by those ferals, and, uh… well, I just wanted to do something nice for you in return. As a thank you.”

Matt took it, very carefully, exploring it with his hands. When he got to the little note attached in one corner, he let his fingertips run over it. “This, my name.”

“Cause it’s for you. Go on, unwrap it.”

He found the places where the paper was held together with duct tape and carefully unfastened them. Always gentle, always cautious, with a silent, humble respect for anything that was created especially for him.

Foggy watched with as much curiosity as Matt, expectant of what she had made him. The paper came away and revealed something that looked like a picture. A thin, wooden frame enclosed a square piece of cardboard about the size of a DVD cover.

Matt explored the flat part with his fingertips for a long time, not saying anything. His eyes squinted a few times, something like recognition flitting across his face. From over on the futon, Foggy couldn’t see what exactly he was examining. Through all of it, Karen had a small smile playing at the corners of her lips.

“Three,” Matt finally said. “This is you, Karen? Me? Foggy?”

She nodded. “Yes. Wow, you recognized that.”

There was a smile on his face—wonder, joy, gratitude all rolled into one. His fingers went back and felt it some more, and now Foggy wanted to know what exactly Karen had made. He got up to sit on the coffee table and peered at the object in Matt’s hands.

It was indeed a framed… something. A piece of cardboard from a Corn Pops cereal box. At first Foggy couldn’t figure out how on earth Matt had recognized the three of them in it, but then he saw subtle ridges in the material.

“Can I see?” Foggy asked.

Matt turned his head to Foggy and held out the picture. “I see you, me, Karen. What it looks like, Foggy?”

Foggy turned it over, and then he could finally understand what Karen had done there. There was a drawing of the three of them, intricate enough to be instantly recognizable. It had been made with a ballpoint pen that she had pressed so hard into the cardboard that the lines bulged out on the other side to create a mirrored, tactile carbon copy of the group portrait.

He was amazed all over by her skill and dedication. He didn’t know she could draw like this. It was more comic outline style than anything, but it really looked like them. Foggy’s long ponytail and his beard, Matt’s messy haircut, Karen’s gentle features and even their scars. They all smiled, various degrees of mischief and happiness hidden there. It was the best thing he’d seen in a long time.

The awe was laced thick in his voice. “Wow, Karen, this is… I don’t even know what to say. It’s amazing. A real work of art.”

Matt repeated his question that Foggy had never answered. “What it looks like?”

Foggy studied it again. “Karen drew the three of us on the other side with a pen. What you can feel on one side is a drawing on the other side. And it totally looks like us, and we’re all smiling and happy. It’s awesome. The next best thing we’ll ever have to a real photograph of us.”

Karen gave them both a big smile that illuminated her face. It made her look at least ten years younger, and Foggy wished they could see that on her more often. “I can put a nail in the wall and you can hang it somewhere if you want, Matt.”

“Yes,” he beamed. “I want this.”

Foggy leaned forward and tapped the back of Matt’s hand so he could take the picture back. “Hang on to this, Matt. It’s very special.”

He lowered his head and indulged in one of those reticent little smiles of his. “Spe-shell,” he muttered.

She got up from the couch. “Here, let me go get a hammer and a nail.”

Matt was still running his finger over the lines that indicated their faces, drinking in every little detail of the drawing. His brow furrowed in confusion as he let his skin glide over them. However, if there was an actual question there, he didn’t have time to ask it because Karen came back up from the garage with the tools.

They agreed to put it up on the wall over the futon where Matt could easily reach it if he wanted to “look” at it. Of course he put it so that the ridged side was facing the room. It amused Foggy considerably that, to any normal person, it would look as if they had put up a framed piece of cereal box on their wall. Like abstract modern art, or some shit. Avant-garde at Casa de Feral Asshole. How quaint.

As soon as Matt had ceremoniously hung it there, they all stood back and surveyed it from a few feet away. Matt sidled closer to Karen. Their shoulders almost touched. His voice was low and reverent. “Thank you, Karen. I like a lot. It is very special.”

Foggy couldn’t be sure from where he stood, but he thought he could see her move her arm to touch his for a fleeting second. “No, Matt, thank _you_. For risking your life out there at the Walgreens. That’s more than I… than _anyone_ could ask for. _That’s_ what’s really special.”

He lowered his head, and Foggy had an urge to go in for a group hug but stopped himself at the last second. Leave it to Karen to kill the moment—she pulled a tissue from her pocket and noisily blew her nose. It sounded disgusting.

“Ugh,” she muttered and walked into the kitchen, probably in search of the trash can.

As Foggy watched Matt trace her movements, that slight, worried frown creasing his forehead, he realized the shift that was still gradually happening. She was truly beginning to see Matt—the lost, struggling version of him that the virus had left behind. She’d begun to interpret the glimpses of the old Matt that were still there, in his sneaky smile and dry humor and earnest personality.

She and Foggy, they were leading him back home, another step, every day. And in his own way, Matt led her back, too. By hovering close to her when she wasn’t feeling well, by giving her things whenever he could, by risking his life for her. There was that look on Matt's face whenever she talked to him. The soft huffing laugh she could coax out of him.

It changed both of them. She smiled more. She laughed louder. It was amazing, and in those moments Foggy could also see the old version of her that had stumbled drunkenly through the city with him, loudly cursed at non-functional office equipment and made Foggy feel her face out of sheer curiosity.

Matt and Karen, they were a fascinating social study in themselves. It took Foggy far too long to realize what had happened. She was, once again, the glue that held together the unstoppable team of Nelson and Murdock.

“Foggy?” Matt stood next to him.

He frowned. Maybe Matt had detected the elevation in his heart rate. “Yeah, Matt?”

He tilted his head, angled it towards the picture on the wall. “You like?”

“Yes, very much.” He felt himself tearing up, and cursed himself for it.

“Foggy, you okay?”

He sniffed once. “Yeah. Just… I don’t know. Getting sentimental at my old age.”

Karen came back from the kitchen, scoffing. “Old age my ass. You’re barely in your mid-thirties.”

“What, I lived through an apocalypse and countless subsequent attacks on my life. Don’t tell me that’s not reason enough to complain.”

“Same here. Do you see _me_ complaining?”

“No, but you’re…” he trailed off.

“I’m what?”

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I retract my statement. You should complain more.”

She let out a quick chuckle as she plopped back on the couch. It elicited another coughing attack, long and wet. It left her panting slightly. Matt was instantly alert.

“God, this sucks,” she moaned.

Matt was hovering near Karen again. “Karen, you don’t want.”

“No,” she sighed. “I don’t want. I _so_ don’t want.”

He sat down on the floor in front of the couch where she was now curled up on her side. Foggy watched from where he sat on the futon. Matt leaned his back against the edge of the seat cushion, dragging one of the pillows over to sit on it. The lime green shower puff was in his hands, and he fingered it with fervor, then held it up for Karen to see when he'd explored a few of the meshed folds. It shook from the tremor of his left arm.

“Karen, what is this?”

“That’s a… I don’t know. Shower puff? A bath sponge of some sort?”

Foggy looked over at them. Matt’s face clearly spelled incomprehension, but Foggy was too lazy to butt in.

Matt let out a grunt. “Don’t know this.”

“You can use it to rub soap or shower gel over your body. It’s supposed to be nice and soft and, uh, spread the soap better? I’ve never used one of those.”

“We can use? Try?”

She lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah, sure. We actually have shower gel now.”

“You show me?”

 _‘Uh oh,’_ Foggy thought. Dangerous territory. Karen might actually be blushing, but he couldn’t really tell.

She recovered quickly, bless her. “Maybe you should ask Foggy, I’m not sure I’m the right person for the job.”

“Foggy, you show me?”

Okay, uh, shit. Cause… weird. “Hm, well, yeah. I guess. If you want. I mean, showering is kind of a private thing, you know? You don’t usually do it together.” Just another unspoken social code Matt would have to relearn.

And amazingly, Matt immediately got it. “Karen, sorry. I not… not mean, you... mm. Sorry.”

“It’s okay, Matt. You’re allowed to ask questions.”

“Have a _lot_ questions.”

“Yes, you do.”

“Not _ask_ questions more a lot?”

“You can ask all the questions you want, okay? Foggy and I, we want you to learn. Make you the most intelligent, smart, amazing feral out there.”

“I _am_ the most amazebing feral.”

She laughed at that. “Yeah, I guess you are. But there’s no reason we can’t make you even _more_ amazing, right? And, Matt? If you wanna say it right, it’s ‘amazing’, not ‘amazebing’.”

Matt hummed, then said, “Amazeballs. Zing. Amazing.”

“Oh, okay. Yeah, those are two different words for the same thing. Well, actually, amazeballs isn’t really a word.”

“Is not?”

“No. I mean, yes, it is, but it’s not… it’s slang. It’s not an official word. Just something someone invented because they thought it sounded cool, and then people started using it.”

“Amazing is bet _ter?”_

“It, uh… It really depends on what you wanna say. Or who you talk to.”

“I talk _to_ you. Not more… mm. Not. Not more.”

“Not anyone else?”

“Not any else,” he confirmed.

“Yeah, and you can say amazeballs to us any time you want. But, say, if you ran into the president of the United States, I wouldn’t exactly say ‘amazeballs’ to him. If he was still alive. Or if we still had a president. Or a United States.” She paused. “You didn’t understand any of what I just said, right?”

Another hum rolled from his throat. “No, don’t understand.”

Karen started explaining the American political system to Matt, and Foggy lay on his side with a blanket and closed his eyes but stayed alert. Maybe he could learn something here, too. Karen had a great way of explaining things, and he’d learned to appreciate the little snippets of off-hand knowledge she would sprinkle in here and there.

It was an interesting topic, and Matt asked a lot of questions, which Karen explained patiently. Foggy realized he’d dozed off at some point after all, and when he jerked awake from an involuntary muscle spasm, there was silence from the other side of the room. Foggy looked over at them. The sight that greeted him made something warm and fuzzy spread through his chest.

Matt had his eyes closed, his expression more relaxed and peaceful than Foggy had seen in a long time. The back of his head was resting on the edge of the seat cushion near her hip, and Karen had her fingers in his hair. Her fingertips fondled the strands near the top that were growing longer again, still uneven from her hasty emergency haircut all those weeks ago. Matt was loving every minute of it, drinking in the almost-touch, the soft undulations of her movements on his scalp. A serene little smile played at his lips.

 _‘You are such nerds,’_ Foggy thought to himself, but he didn’t say it out loud, didn’t dare move for fear he might disrupt their sacred little moment. But then Matt couldn’t help himself and sighed in such deep contentment that it came out almost like a purr.

Unfortunately, it made Karen immediately stop and retract her hand. The suddenness of it made Matt let out a tiny little disappointed growl. Foggy was wide awake now, still not daring to speak.

Obviously, Matt’s dissatisfaction was strong enough for him to ask in a low voice, “Karen, why you stop?”

She looked... uneasy. Foggy didn’t like it, but he could make a pretty good guess what it was. Some kind of distress and aversion rooted deep that she couldn’t quite help. It’d take her a while to get over that. The discomfort blasted right through to her voice. “I don’t—I don’t know why I was doing that.”

“Like a lot _you_ do.”

She pulled her arms to her chest and crossed them to grip her shoulders. “Yeah. I know. I’m sorry, Matt, I just... I can’t do this right now, okay?”

Matt’s face said _‘not okay’_ , and also _‘what the fuck, why?!’_ and then Foggy knew he had to do something.

“Matt?” he asked gently. “Can you come over here for a minute?”

Matt tilted his head, still bewildered, and so very guilt-ridden that he’d apparently once again inadvertently fucked something up that he didn’t understand. He slowly clambered to his feet, protecting his right arm against his ribcage. Over on the futon, he curled in on himself, his back to Foggy.

He reached out and softly touched Matt’s back. “Hey, buddy, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong, okay?”

Matt just growled and pulled away from Foggy’s touch. Jesus, how had they gotten here again? Things were going so well. His attention still on Matt, he heard a rustle from the couch, a sniffle, and then Karen was gone through the door to the garage.

Foggy sat up and scooted just a little closer to Matt. His hand came to rest on Matt’s hip, and he left it there. He made his voice as soothing as he could. “I know you don’t understand this, but it’s Karen. She has some stuff to work out. There’s... I don’t know. Something really bad happened to her. She has bad memories. And sometimes they come back up, and then she gets like this. But it’s not you, Matt. Not you as a person.”

It took Matt a while to reply. And there was so much sadness and regret there, even in his few, stuttery words. “I am feral. I am not good.”

Ah geez, not this malarkey again. “Yes, you’re feral, and I think that has to do with it. But it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. Deep down, Karen knows that. She’ll get past that. But you need to give her time, okay? It’ll happen slowly. And we have to keep being there for her. Like we’ve done, like _you’ve_ done. We need to be strong for her, Matt.”

And then Matt turned around, lay on his back, his eyes aimed at something invisible in the middle distance to the ceiling. “I want to,” he said meekly.

Foggy patted his thigh. “Yeah, me too. Let me go down and talk to her. I’ll fix this.”

“I not come?”

“No, I think it might be better if you didn’t. Not right now. But it’ll be okay. She’ll come around. Watch out for when we come back up, you can make us some tea. Are you up for that?”

“Yes, I make—I _will_ make tea.”

Foggy gave a vague smile. “Okay, good.”

Down in the garage, he found her by the work bench in the corner, hunched over on the wooden stool with the one wobbly leg. He carefully approached her. “Karen?”

“Leave me alone, Foggy.”

“You know I can’t do that.”

“Yes, you can.”

“Well, I won’t.”

She was silent, and Foggy was silent, and the quiet stretched and twisted against the rain that was now pelting against the garage door. A gust of wind made it rattle.

It was Foggy who spoke first. “It’s gonna be okay, you know?”

“Is it?” She whirled around, something dark and angry twisting her features.

He didn’t let that faze him. “Yes. If you let it be.”

Her eyes squinted harshly. “Yeah, spare me the platitudes, okay?”

He took a step closer, watching carefully if she’d shy away, but she didn’t. She looked like a fragile, frightened creature now. The next sentence toppled from his lips before he’d even thought about it. “I want to hug you. Can I hug you?”

There was hesitation there. She looked like everything inside of her wanted to say no. But then she nodded, and Foggy closed the gap between them and gently pulled her towards him, his arms coming around her back. She was bony, wiry, but also strong. He let his hands rub gently up and down her back.

Her voice was muffled against his shoulder, and he knew there were silent tears there. “Foggy, I didn’t mean to do that. It’s not his fault, and I hurt him, but I just... I... sometimes it just happens, you know?”

Foggy nodded against her hair. “Yeah, I know. And Matt does too.”

“How? How can he know?”

“You know he’s not stupid. And of course he doesn’t understand the full extent of it. But he knows enough.”

She pulled away, took a step back, her red-rimmed eyes on Foggy in the half-light. “Because you’re always so patient, and you always just know the right thing to do, the right thing to say to calm him down or pull him out of his funk, or, I don’t know, make things right. You’re like a goddamn superhero.”

He snorted. “Aw, seriously? You’re giving me way too much credit. I’m totally making this up as I go. None of us have the fucking rulebook, you know? We just do what we can. And we keep trying. You’re doing that, too.”

“Yeah, but I’m doing a piss-poor job of it.”

“No, you’re not. I know that there’s some shit in your past, and I wish someday you’ll be ready to talk about it, but you don’t have to. You never have to. Because we’ll be here, no matter what.”

She was crying again, wiping furiously at her tears as they rolled down her cheeks. “I don’t deserve that,” she whispered.

“Bullshit,” he countered. “That’s something that Matt would say, and I won’t let you do it as much as I won’t let _him_ do it.”

Her forehead creased, unbridled emotions rippling across her face, and it was a fucking miracle that Foggy was here to witness that, because it was so far removed from the Paige he’d encountered all those months ago.

She choked up a sob, and then she went into a cough that turned deep and violent and left her panting hard. Foggy was by her side, his hand on her back, steadying her as best as he could.

“Easy,” he whispered. “Jesus. We need to do something about this.”

A hollow chuckle escaped her mouth. “Not much left we _can_ do.”

“Well, we can start by getting you out of this goddamn cold room and back under the blankets with a nice, hot cup of tea.” Foggy hoped Matt was listening in, picking up on the cue.

She nodded, and Foggy added, “I can ask Matt to leave you alone for a while. You know he will.”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t... I don’t want that. I think it was just... I don’t know—a spur-of-the-moment thing. I think it’s gonna be okay.”

Foggy gave her an encouraging smile. “Yeah. But still. Say the word, okay?” He lightly squeezed her arm. “And by the way, that drawing? So awesome. I love it. And Matt loves it. It’s total epic win.”

And there was a small smile, and Foggy considered it a victory. He ushered her up the stairs, and she confirmed, “It was fun making it.”

“Well, if you feel the urge to draw again, do it. The place could use some decoration.”

“Maybe we can ask Matt to scavenge for a sketch pad and decent pencils.”

They opened the door, and Matt was in the kitchen, already operating the Bunsen burner. It didn’t take long for him to bring out two mugs of tea, one of which he put on the coffee table, careful not to come too close to Karen. “For you,” he just said, then handed Foggy the other mug and sat down on the futon, his knees drawn up to his chest.

Karen gave him a wan smile. “Thanks, Matt.”

His only response was a faint, breathy, “You’re welcome.”

Foggy put the mug down and slid over to Matt, letting his arm come around him, pulling him closer. Matt flinched, and Foggy wasn’t sure if it was his damn misguided self-flagellation or the sore shoulder, but he didn’t care. He just wanted Matt to have someone near, to show him as much as Karen that it would be all right.

He felt him relax a little, and then Matt asked, “Foggy, sketch pad, what is it?”

Yeah, he’d totally listened in, the little mongrel. Foggy knew he would. “It’s a stack of paper, kinda like a book, but bigger and the pages are blank. You can draw and paint on them. Do you know where to find something like that?”

“Yes. A lot house, a lot... mm. F-five blocks. I will get.”

“Yeah, later, when your arms are okay again.”

Matt grumbled. He still fucking hated being cooped up in the apartment. But then he added, “I will get for Karen.”

Foggy cast her a glance. She was chewing on her lower lip. There was a whole lot of regret on her face, and a huge goddamn apology that Matt wouldn’t be able to read if he tried. If she was the glue that was holding Nelson & Murdock together, Foggy would first have to align the misplaced pieces that had broken off somewhere along the way.

But before he could figure out how, Matt shifted his position next to Foggy and said, “Foggy, I have question.”

“Well, then go ahead and ask it.”

“Is for Karen.”

“Then why don’t you go and ask Karen?”

He let his chin drop to his chest, looking suddenly very forlorn. He let out a soft, almost inaudible hum, and Foggy had a good idea what this was. Matt wasn’t sure whether it was okay to address her directly, but he also knew that what he wanted to say would come out phrased as delicately as a bull browsing through a china shop.

Karen’s voice was gentle, drifting over to them from the couch. “It’s okay, Matt. I’m sorry for running off on you earlier. I don’t… I don’t even really know why, but, uh… I didn’t mean to do that.”

“Is okay, Karen. You have memory _is_ not g— is bad. Bad memory. All we… we have _all_ bad memories.”

“You really have no idea,” she whispered under her breath, but then caught herself and said out loud, “You can ask your question, Matt. I can’t promise I will answer it, but I’ll try, okay?”

He let his eyes rove around, landing somewhere near the armrest of the couch. “In drawing, you… you have, mm…” The fingers of his right hand came up to his face, tracing his long, ugly flare gun scar from his cheek into his hairline. “You have this, Karen?”

Foggy watched with fascination. Karen instinctively touched her own scar. “My scar?”

“Scar,” Matt repeated slowly.

“Yes, I have a scar there as well. Not exactly in the same place, mine is a little lower. It goes from my cheek right into my ear and it’s,” she let out a huffed breath that was wrapped in another bad memory, “it’s pretty messed up, my ear.”

“You can say why? Want to say?”

“Do I want to tell you how it happened?”

“Yes, Karen.”

He voice was soft. “A feral. It had a machete, some big sharp thing. It was dark. I don’t remember exactly. Tried to..." she let out a shaking breath, "...um. Kill me. Didn’t quite succeed, obviously. Left me with a nice little reminder. But, hey,” her chuckle sounded way too forced, “what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger, right? I survived. All things considered, I guess I got lucky. Really lucky. Cause this..." she gestured weakly around the living room, "is better than anything I could have imagined when the aliens dropped down from the skies and destroyed half the planet.”

Matt was twisting his lower lip with thumb and index finger for a long time. He was stewing on something. Karen and Foggy watched him warily as they let the silence drag on. Rain was still falling in rhythmic pit-pats on the roof above them, much too gentle a sound for its corrosive nature.

“Karen,” Matt finally said, adding a, “mm.”

“What is it, Matt?”

“I am feral. This is bad memories?”

She took a moment to answer that. “There’s no yes-or-no answer to that. Ferals are detestable, appalling creatures, and I hate their guts, but, Matt, that doesn’t include you. Because you’re not like them. I’m not sure _what_ you are, but you’re not one of them. I know that now.”

“Not want— I don’t want this.”

“You don’t want what?”

“Not bad memories. Not hurt you.”

“Oh Matt, I know that. You would never hurt me. Or Foggy. But, you know, sometimes we react to things in a way we can’t control. In a way that doesn’t make sense. Do you remember when Foggy wanted to sit on you to give you the massage? You had a bad reaction. You didn’t mean to do that, right?”

“Did not want,” he admitted meekly.

“Do you remember what Foggy told you when you got scared?”

“Said not to say sorry. Said he knows it is _me_ is okay.”

“Yeah, and that’s all we can do, is to accept that it _is_ that way, and that sometimes that has to be enough.”

He seemed to consider that for a long moment, playing with a fold of his wrist bandage before he said, “You is you... is enough.”

Karen’s mouth spread into a smile, and there was something mischievous in it as well. “Look at us—one big, happy, fucked up family.”

Foggy protested, “Hey, I’m not fucked up.”

“Oh no? You’re hardly sane, Franklin Nelson, otherwise you wouldn’t be best friends with a rehabilitated blind feral and wouldn’t keep sewing him back together when he tumbles in through the window, bleeding from about three hundred different places.”

Matt looked confused again. “Franklin... what is this?”

Foggy let out a short laugh. “It’s my name, dumbass.”

“Your name is Foggy.”

“Yeah, that’s my nickname. Remember when people called me Frank back at the shelter? That was short for Franklin. Franklin is my real name. Just like Matthew. Matt is just short for Matthew.”

“My name Matty.”

Foggy sighed. Somewhere along the way, Matt had adopted the conviction that his real name was Matty. Maybe because Foggy had called him that when they first met in the Park. “Matty is a nickname, too. Your real name is Matthew Michael Murdock. Three Ms.”

“My- _kell_?”

“Yeah. Michael. But no one ever called you that. It’s a middle name. It’s... oh man, please don’t ask me to explain it. I don’t really know why people have middle names. An old tradition, or something.”

Matt thought about it, then asked, “Karen, what is your name?”

“It’s just Karen Page. I don’t have a middle name.”

“You want?”

“What, a middle name? Yeah, Matt, it doesn’t quite work that way. Your parents choose your name. Or names. They’re given to you at birth and you don’t usually change them.”

He huffed. “This not good. We can _make_ mill name.”

Foggy correct him, “It’s ‘middle’, Matt. And I think Karen’s good with just one name.” He looked at her. “Aren’t you?”

She laughed. “Yeah, Karen’s just fine. It’s not a contest, you know?”

Matt hummed, then he grinned and said, “Foglin Nelson.”

Foggy grimaced. “Oh no. No, no, no. Now you’re just being a smartass. You’re calling me Foggy. I won’t listen to anything else.”

“Foglin.”

“Not listening.”

“Fogl—“

“Matt...” Foggy said with a mock warning undertone. “Don’t. I swear to you, I’ll—“

“Foglin.”

Foggy threw his arms up in defeat. “Fine. I’ll be Foglin for a day. But then I’m calling you Math-kel in return. Or My-kew.”

Matt let out one of his breathy laughs. “Does not sounds good. Foglin better.”

It took a whole two days to convince Matt that Foglin should never become a thing for as long as they lived, five more for Karen to stop coughing, and another two for Foggy to allow Matt to go back out again.

Within four days, Matt won back the Walgreens, but not without a good amount of scrapes, bumps and bruises. Foggy sighed, groaned and eye-rolled—to no avail. Matt was Matt, and he would always be. But he always came home in more or less one piece—and a day later, with a sketchbook for Karen—and they had learned to be thankful for what they had.

Their one big, happy, fucked up family.

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End file.
